Rolling Eyes And Thundering Skies: There Is Still Time
by AkiDragonwings
Summary: Excerpt from my main story of Hawke and Fenris before the impending Act 2 problems. Humor and romance of course and lots of it. Feel free to read the whole thing if it piques your interest.
1. All Is Violent, All Is Bright

**An hour before Sunrise, ****Casa Della Libertà Eterna, **_**Last day in Antiva City**_

Fenris awoke suddenly, having had that kind of annoying dream where one appears to fall into a pit and wake up with a shudder. He heard birds chirruping outside and felt the chilly breeze of the Antivan morning. He listened to the movement of the waters beneath the inn and all around it, and through the canals and into the sea. He blinked a couple of times, the imagery and nuances propelling back into a coherent frame. Images came to him, bits and pieces of dreams.

Nothing was substantial but Hawke. And Hawke was here. Back turned to him, sleeping like the dead, almost about to be crushed by his apparently tight embrace. The cascade of red hair under his chin brought back the familiar sweet smell. He brushed his cheek against it, as if to be certain it was real. Looking out the window, the sky had been stamped with the usual rosy and violet nuances of dawn. The sun was teasing the world still, underneath the horizon.

Indeed, it seemed the horrors and joys that overwhelmed him with so many shocks were but a prelude for their coming closer. A thunder could strike him now and he would probably repel it with all the power of his being, so he wouldn't be taken away from this moment. Ah, but how long before this will become just another dream? He feared. Forget hope. Forget thoughts. He tilted his head and rested it against her soft hair and clutched her waist tighter from the back. There was still time. He closed his eyes and dozed back to sleep.

**Moments later**

Isabela had always been shameless and with a pardon for everything. And why not? You take what you can get, and if you can get more than what life gives you – more like throws at you, a poor steak now and then to the starved and crazed dog –what's it to life to stop you? She was nosy when she wanted to, and very private when she needed to. She kept her doubts secret and moved on in fine tune with the filth and the wonders of a world set out to be unfair. Life is unfair. Simple as that. Crooked. Straighten it up to your preference, if you had the balls to.

But now that something happened to Hawke, she regretted the recent altercation with her. Of course, she considered her mind a bit too crazy even for her, much too pointlessly brave. Futile, to the larger scheme of things, because Hawke was more dead-set on taking care of her friends and innocent strangers, stray puppies and lost kittens, than ultimately herself; if stomachs didn't burn and growl from hunger, the girl would probably be dead by now.

Although a leader and a motherly, sort of guarding presence that she was to them all, she appreciated one thing in particular – she was the kind that let you stray as much as you wanted to, far away from her circle of security, but most times you wouldn't dare to cross it and venture into foreign spaces simply _because_ she gave you the liberty to choose. It was for her and maybe everyone else a terrible contradiction. She welcomed and cared enough, but appearing to stick to her private business just the same and letting people jump and twirl and sway and stumble on their own if they so wished. Ah, now they sounded like children. But a fine stratagem in its intent, nonetheless, right? Points for that.

Like a true general, she did what she had to do, whatever she wanted to do. Had to and wanted. That's the thing.

Helping Isabela was –or at least had been – still something she wanted to do, although she gave up wondering as to why. There was no barrel, pile of rubble and lonely bush stretching from Darktown to Sundermount that Hawke hadn't stuck her head into for her sake. Of course, they hadn't found anything. Hawke wanted to do it, but didn't really appear to care. In the Hanged Man, when they would drink afterwards, she seemed as if it would always be normal if she just stood up and left suddenly, never to come back. What a contradiction, but still. Cunning and cleverness were things Isabela herself luckily possessed, and she couldn't help but guess that Hawke had already been stamped by death and cruelty enough to make her roughly immune to the most common desires.

Only in the courtyard of the palazzo-inn-casa-whatever they were staying in did Hawke lose her temper a bit and told Isabela to get out of her sight. It was still liberty of choice, which she imposed, though. But, just a thought – maybe she used that opportunity to unconsciously instruct Isabela to stay and look after Dorian while they were venturing in the belly of certain death. One could only imagine what sort of twisted ideas came into this woman's head every time she did something.

As much as she liked Hawke, for she was independent and wild just as she was, Isabela wasn't really hopelessly and irrevocably wed to her as Varric was. And Fenris, apparently. Ah, yes, Fenris was… well, he was hopelessly off limits now. No matter if he stayed with Hawke in boring, sexless, platonic _whatever_, one could blind and gag Isabela and she would still recognize a man in love when she saw one. Sometimes it was funny to see them struggle with their hidden emotions, but most times she feared for her own life… because The Hanged Man would one day surely crumble and collapse, burn or blow up from the sexual tension and the snarky way they went at each other's throats. It was simple. The Hanged Man would surely blow up someday, either because one of them exploded or because someone would set fire to it just to make them shut up.

Alas, whatever brooding that kept Isabela up and unable to sleep any longer, it made her get out of her room and long for a large cup of Antivan coffee. Antivan coffee soon to be turned Ferelden, if she found any rum about. She walked out of her room and strolled wearily along the hallway. She stopped suddenly, scrutinizing the door of Hawke's room. Why not check?

Locked. She wasn't back. She walked past it but stopped again as she realized she was out of coin. She pissed it all on drinks for two days straight to calm Dorian down from his crazed anguish in waiting for Armand to come back and fearing for his life. _Time to borrow money from Hawke and tell her later_. She went back to the door and picked the lock with the swiftness of any self-respecting rogue.

Only when the door opened did she realize she had the wrong door. Fenris was there with his back turned and sleeping in the bed like a preserved, half-dead peaceful mummy. She immediately blocked the usual sounds she would have made in this situation and turned her head to close the door on her way out without waking him. She knew he had not slept at all, having looked after Hawke in a full half of Antiva City the day before, until Varric finally convinced him they would have had a higher chance to find her at the inn if she was – she had better be – still alive and well.

_Andraste's granny panties. _Her automatism clashed, her mind paralyzed, her eyes widened, and she turned her head back to the sleeping elf. He was glued to a woman in his sleep. Blue coat and red hair, that's as much as she made up. Oh, oh… **oh. **

No stampede or cheetah in the world could have outrun her as she headed for the hills with such fiery speed. Correction: one particular hill called Varric.

"Varric, Varric, Varric!" she shouted rapidly as she came into the common dining rooms and almost tripped and fell on her face.

"Rivaini, Rivai-, ah sod it, your name's too long. Who put fairy-power in your drink?" Varric asked in surprise. He stood up from his chair and watched her catch her breath.

In-between panting, with a hand over her chest, she mumbled, "Feh… haw…bah… sleeh... tugh-"

"Fenhoebas-what?" Varric asked. "Are you having a stroke?"

"Lisshhen to meeh," Isabela muttered incoherently, hand over her heart.

"I'm trying to but you keep making no sense," Varric shouted.

She stood up straight again and shook her head rapidly. "Hawke is back and she's sleeping with Fenny."

"Bullshit," Varric scowled.

"Come see for yourself," Isabela shouted and heaved a palm in annoyance.

"If this is one of your tricks to have me away while the waitress pours a laxative in my soup, you can kiss that pretty head of yours goodbye," Varric threatened, his eyes narrowing. "I'll have it ripped off."

"And how exactly will you do that? Hire the Crows you're running from?" Isabela arched an eyebrow and shrugged, "Get a ladder?" she asked meanly.

"There's at least one taller person than me in this city who would do it for free," Varric muttered back angrily, subtly meaning either Fenris or Armand.

"Are you going to keep bitching at me like a princess or are you gonna come see for yourself?" Isabela asked impatiently.

"After you, Siren Pants. Oh wait, you have no pants," Varric mused as they took off for the upper level.

"And yet you do you're still the closest one to resembling a fairy princess," Isabela fired back.

"I'm sexy and I know it," Varric mused cockily.

* * *

**Meanwhile, upstairs…**

Hawke awoke with her usual careless arm and leg stretching and mmm-ing to no end. She had already forgotten what it felt like to wake up in a **bed**. Her smile of satisfaction would have reached Kirkwall, if not for her elbow that had outrun it and reached Fenris's nose. His short growl at the disturbing force and his tightening clutch at her waist woke her up completely.

"Shit. Oh. Ah… Top of the morning to ya," Hawke said quickly… as quickly as she wanted to hit herself in the face for being such a smooth one in these situations.

No adorable puppies and kittens in the world would have ever outdone Fenris as he muttered the softest possible "mm" as he opened his eyes. Dark eyes that now became fiercely bright as he looked at her. She was smiling awkwardly and didn't quite know what to do with her hands.

To her surprise, Fenris smiled at her so knowingly, with a sudden quiet air of triumph. "Look who decided they would love to venture into foreign lands."

She coughed and made him look at their positions. _He _was holding her, not the other way around.

"That is not how I remember it last night," Fenris fired back unyieldingly.

"So you _were_ pretending to be asleep," Hawke said in an accusatory tone. "You're such a snake."

"Keep trying to make yourself pass as perfectly innocent," Fenris said with an all-knowing grin. "Meanwhile, I will go back to sleep, if you don't mind. I have already started dreaming halfway through your sentence anyway."

"Har-har," Hawke replied grumpily. She broke away from his grip and rose from the bed. "Well. I want to get up." She put a hand over her forehead and felt the wave of fever.

"Has your intoxicated mind suddenly thought it would be a legendary accomplishment to compete with the Sun in who rises first to glory and takes over the world?" Fenris asked sarcastically, rising up on his elbows and rubbing one eye. "Do you wager the gods will give you a legendary prize?"

"If the prize is you getting out of my face – sure!" Hawke fired back grumpily, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"… And we're back to the stinging," Fenris muttered wearily, rubbing his eyes still.

"Well I'm _waspish _like that," she mused childishly.

Fenris was exhausted. Half-asleep, but half was enough to fire back with at least half his wit.

"And clearly you take pride in your hard work of bestowing your cruelty upon my world," he said sarcastically with his eyes closed, mocking the busy bee turned an evil stinging wasp.

"Well, some take delight- oh!" She stopped and smiled, turning her head to him while sitting on the edge. "There's this old Ferelden folk song that goes like," she paused to clear her throat and sang in a perfectly tuned and strong womanly voice, "Now there's some takes delight in the carriages a rolling, and some takes delight in the hurley or the bowlin'. But I takes delight in the juice of the barley…And courting pretty fair maids in the morning bright and early!" she continued with raised hands. "Mush-a ring dum-a do dum-a daaaah."

Moment of silence for the fallen. Fenris wasn't impressed. Go figure…

"Pam, pam, pam, pam," she finished while banging her palms on her knees. "Well, look who's really going whack fall the daddy-o."

He opened his eyes. "Whack-a-what?"

"Never mind," Hawke said in amusement. "This particular fair maiden doesn't seem to get my drift this fine morning bright and early."

"And now I'm a woman," Fenris said with sharp disdain.

"Hey, you call me forest troll and I call you fair maiden and you're still the one to bitch and complain?" she demanded.

"You do make an excellent point," Fenris said calmly, which could only mean shortly thereafter a pretentious little snarky comment would follow. He put a hand over his heart first, as if to make it more dramatic. "My sincere apologies, Bob."

"Apology rejected, Genevieve," Hawke stung back calmly. She rose from the bed and turned to look at him.

"You burn me with those words," Fenris replied with eyes fully closed, his tone of inconvincible honesty.

Hawke grinned widely and shrugged, "Well, if you didn't have me to rake you over the coals now and then, there wouldn't be any fire in your life at all."

How very true, yet she didn't know it to be so.

"Dragons… dragons, everywhere," Fenris muttered calmly to himself, staring in blank now towards the ceiling. Yes, an allegory most refined. This was truly the Dragon Age.

"Ah, yes. Big, mighty, mystical creatures destroying other people's lives on purpose, this causing havoc around all around the world and bringing it to the very pits of despair," she said subtly in sarcasm. Her tone then came very calm, "That can be rather annoying."

"It depends how you look at it," Fenris said calmly in his weary daze.

"There is more than one? Do tell," Hawke said eagerly.

He rose on his elbows and considered it for a few seconds. He managed to open only one eye. Then he explained, one-eyed, "Well, you see. You could look at it at as if these seriously misunderstood creatures are boiling and preying on the world around them, bringing it to the very end of its days. But one must never forget, that there lies a difference. A difference so easy to forget."

She thought he was going to end in his predictable mean punch line. This wasn't it.

He rose his palm and explained further, one-eyed, "And it is tangled up in the illusion that they are consciously and deliberately evil. But those that do, those are the Old Gods. Nothing to do with actual dragons," he dismissed with his palm, "but they wear their garments in their image when they do emerge from the earth as the so-called Archdemons."

"And?" came her impatient tone.

Fenris sighed and stretched his explanation, "And so it is thus misinterpreted that all dragons are cruel and evil. It is a fallacy by appearance, as well as by the natural need of living beings to form convincible and consoling inductions." He gestured with his palms up. "Stretching out the truth to lessen the burden of not knowing everything, if you will. "

"So you're saying…" Hawke shrugged with lifted eyebrows.

Fenris remained a statue, staring in blank with his one open eye. He appeared to have lost his train of thought. "I don't… quite remember my original point," he confessed.

"You're such a joy," she muttered in a pretend-sweet tone. Then she sighed and took a seat back on the bed. "Ah, let me clean up the mess inside your head."

Very true, she had already been doing that for a good amount of time. She didn't know it to be true.

"So dragons blow fire and destroy the world and they're annoying," she started while gesturing and looking up at the ceiling. "Then dragons are not actually evil, but the Old Gods who make do with their masks."

He lay back flat on the bed in complete exhaustion as he nodded and mumbled "Correct."

"They look and fight and do almost everything just the same, but only the Old Gods are purposely and consciously, and all the more powerfully able of actually bringing an apocalypse."

"Affirmative," came again Fenris's placid tone with another nod.

"So you're saying I'm not really purposely trying to mock or hurt you, but sometimes I may accidentally do it because it is in my nature to be mean and that's automatically where my tone usually goes whenever I open my mouth?" Hawke asked very rapidly.

"You are harmless," Fenris said with a smirk that had all the traceries of a warm expression because of his closed eyes.

In truth, now he remembered, he started something related to that idea, but ended up trying to make a metaphor about how some mages are truly evil and some can be truly good. Paying her a compliment with an obvious reality he had put honest and stubborn work in trying to discard for a vaguely long time. That was quite an effort in itself. Though when did he suddenly become so utterly resigned from his past endeavor? Alas.

She quickly rose from the bed, standing proudly atall.

"I am quite dangerous, in fact," Hawe said with a devilish grin. She was not pertaining to magic.

Both his eyes opened. "Are you now? Well, by all means –prove it," Fenris gestured arrogantly. He was not pertaining to magic.

"Now why would I do such a thing!" came her proud voice. Suddenly a flame came up in her hand, but not as lively as her girlish smile. "I hate to hurt you."

He raised an eyebrow with all the fullness of nonchalance. Fenris was unimpressed.

With a quickness of a genuinely driven person, she launched the fireball next to his head, purposely misfiring. He dodged it in a second, of course, the fire dying out in the air, and he looked back at her **without **some pretentious scowl of inconvenience.

Fenris let himself fall back on the pillow while muttering arrogantly, "Well... thank god for _that_."

Oh, good. Not pertaining to magic, but using magic as pretense. Yes, oh, she was so mighty dangerous.

Hawke understood his subtle mockery to mask his inconvenience. Suddenly the irony became all the more sweeter all with her drawing up that historical pretentious scowl of inconvenience, and added to the charm a little _hmph_.

After several seconds of silence in which he seemed to have a thought in his mind and repeatedly trying to kill it, he soon decided he could make do with play out of character today and open up.

"I'm not made out of glass," he replied with an edge.

"No. You're made out of skin," she said flatly with a smile, as she gestured. "And hair, and muscle, and blood, and internal organs and whatever other things that can be irrevocably torn apart."

The soul, he suspected. He opened his eyes again and rose on his elbows.

"I assure you. I am quite sturdy," Fenris said rather sweetly.

"I assure you. I am quite hopeless," Hawke retorted with a satirically innocent smile.

"Ah, good. I was afraid hope was feeling overly ambitious today all with trying to make a special effort," Fenris said sarcastically.

The corner of Hawke's lips went rapidly crooked and she crossed her arms. "Well I see strength isn't making much of an appearance today either."

_Yes, mock my utter exhaustion out of trying to find you in half of Antiva. More the fool I, so it seems. _

Ah, he didn't mind. He was glad to partake in their usual dance of snarky comments. Even if she was a queen of evasion, he was content with his little victory from last night. Even if she had not truly said the words he had secretly hoped for and had buried somewhere deep in his soul, he was still positive with delight; noted, despite feeling stupid and remarkably appalled by himself that in a fit of crazy passion, that had seemed to obliterate all his logic, he had inexplicably and with no reserve said,"I am yours." To say such abominably idiotic words - better never than late, one could only hope. Unfortunately to his evermore ironic fate, he had chosen in reverse.

He'd met Hawke on a Tuesday. He'd kissed her on a Friday.

Two and a half years later.

He sighed. That seemed like a fair triumph, right? Only two and half more years before she would allow anything else, he suspected. Double that amount of time upon giving up her heart for him, he suspected.

Yes, her heart was a secret garden and the walls were very high. As well as other parts; he stood corrected. He sighed again. How long before he'd manage to tear down those high walls? Tearing down was nothing. He wanted to viciously crush them to bits. There was still time.

Yet, unbeknownst for a long time, he had not understood that she was intentionally disguising her feelings with sarcasm; that was usually the last resort of people who are timid and chaste of heart, whose souls have been coarsely and impudently invaded; and who, until the last moment, refuse to yield out of pride and were afraid to express their own feelings to you. Hawke was not the case. Hawke was worse than that; sarcasm was her _first _choice of weapon, and her second, third and twenty-fifth, and in doing so she quickly got him infuriated with her. Her last resort being, of course, a perfectly precise and graceful punch or sword thrust in your face. If she had strong feelings for him, this might have been the case. Only a matter of time. Yes, there was still time. He was rather grateful for that little equation.

Ah, perhaps she was a lady. After all, he had to be the judge of that. Be that as it may, truth would have it that he was not only a good judge of character when it came to most people, but an even greater judge of himself. He was no ladykiller. _Shocking, _he thought.

She, instead, could outdo any scary black widow in the dark arts of killing him as a man with a fancy with each passing day while her walls were up so damn high. He had managed to climb at least a little, rather quickly. One must surely give her credit merely for not also throwing some grenade in his face in order to make him fall off of it. And if that dramatic scenery wasn't enough, it just added to the charm that one thought he held in his head, that if he was the so-called Knight of Roses, she was the Queen of Thorns.

And she was too proud to be a queen.

Perhaps he was too cowardly to be a knight.

Well, regal features aside, she deserved to have a good and safe life; one he could never give her. That was something that had haunted his mind and made him equally wanting to pull away from her as much as he wanted to be with her. Protection from any danger, that what was more important for him. He could do that. He could attempt to. The only thing he wasn't certain of was if protecting her was perhaps made best by him completely disappearing from her life or remaining there to look after her himself on a very regular, strong, full basis. He could not do it in moderation any longer. Actually this was not called moderation in this case. It was called doing things half-heartedly. And he was surely a man that had never made friends with doing anything half-heartedly.

Crucified between these two thoughts, never did he feel so curiously bitter. Not that she needed to be protected, she would have said. After all, she had risen from nothing and made a life for herself in the sad little city of Kirkwall.

Ah, yes. He was a man half in love with despair. And Despair was staring at him in the eye all dressed in fine bright garments with a thick cascade of red hair and an even redder soul. Yes, he completed by being half-infuriated at it on the other side.

Yet even so, despite this shameful state of affairs and the bitterness that afflicted his soul, a lonely, persistent thought did manage to pester his mind.

Just as he knew the sun was obliged to rise each morning in the east, no matter how much a western arousal might have pleased it –now he was squeezing dirty thoughts in his internal monologues, how wonderful – so he knew that Hawke was obliged to be stuck with him despite her everlasting defenses. Gold was inviting, and so was nobility, but they could not match the fever in his heart, and sooner or later she would have to catch it.

She had less choice than the sun.

"Sorry. Mechanical reflex," she mused childishly. "Truly not my intent."

"Of course," he muttered back and gave her a little smile. "Yet every time it's with great success."

"Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success," Hawke recited knightly.

"Well, at least you've got one of those covered," Fenris said meanly with a grin.

"Of course," Hawke said confidently, but her smile died shortly thereafter and was reborn in the fullness of a scowl. "Wait… which one?"

"Oh, I would not dare disclose such facts," he played arrogantly with half-closed eyes. "It would make me seem ungentlemanly."

"King of semantics," she muttered calmly. Her smile was full of joy. "Back with the insults it is then."

His whole time together with Hawke suddenly flashed before his eyes. Again, and certainly not the last time, he conceived that her moods and fortunes somehow reflected his own. Which moods and fortunes you might ask? Cascades over cascades of big, gigantic, massive, gargantuan flows of sarcasm and mean comments pouring over the slow-growing garden of their friendship. Yes, surely one might think these purely fantastic waves of stinging would have utterly and completely drowned the flowers before they had ever really bloomed, but no. Theirs was a garden full of inconceivable wonders and inexplicable lunacies like that. It had been clear from the very beginning that they didn't really –or perhaps had no interest to– function within the normal laws of nature.

What came to mind was the beginning of their first conversation in the Hanged Man, morning after they met.

* * *

**Autumn of 9:31 Dragon, The Hanged Man**

"So, you run and you hide, is that it?" she asked calmly, when Varric went to buy the drinks.

"Not anymore," he replied insipidly, his elbows catching roots on the table.

"Now you just hide," she said flatly with a smile. "That mansion seems the perfect pit to crawl and die in, after all."

He pressed his lips in annoyance. "As a slave I used to have a remarkably distinct lack of initiative, but now that I met the one truly remarkable mage in all of Thedas_,_ I think I am beginning to set an equally distinct personal goal."

Hawke frowned; she didn't understand. Her eyes did sparkle shortly thereafter and brought back the air of joyful mockery to defend herself from being that one, single clown mage in all of Theds. "Oh, yes, how true this is. I did say you would be the great humble pain my pretentious clownish magical ass. How's that going for you?"

Not a day had passed and they were already snarkity-uppity with each other.

"I'm fairly ambitious," he shrugged.

It was surprising that he was beginning to acquit himself none too badly in the use of the sentimental and picturesque language which was called _wit_.

"So apart from that fierce drive and distinct ambition to bitch at me, do you have any other interests or hobbies?" she asked while playing with the red band wrapped around the ring of her pommel.

Fenris considered this for a minute, watching her as she played. "I enjoy the arts of swordsmanship," came his flat-toned statement.

Hawke leaned over the table and asked, her voice changing curiously. "You fence?"

"Not exactly," Fenris drawled, slightly arching an eyebrow. "I prefer freestyle."

To this day, she did not know if he hadn't realized what he was saying or if he had deliberately intended it as a subtlety.

"What about you? What do you do?" He needed to ask questions, draw her out. He needed to find out all the information that he could, for his curiosity was peeking horribly inside as to what sort of depraved calamity this woman in front of him was. Quick-thinking, calculcated, rather excellent in battle. But she was a mage. He stood corrected; his curiosity was howling inside. His voice sounded strong and smooth, but his hands were a bit shaky and he put them in his lap so she couldn't see.

"I prey on innocent villagers and terrify little children," she said with a nasty smile, mocking his 'viper in your midst' comment. "And sometimes when I'm feeling _really_ evil, I read books or paint."

Several minutes later he proceeded to interrogate her again. Her brother had sat down at the table. He didn't seem to notice.

"So, that is where you all live?" Fenris asked a bit contained. "It's rather – " She arched an eyebrow, so his voice lowered and stiffened, and his face launched into awkwardness as he finished, "small."

"Oh no, that is just our Satinalia house," Hawke muttered with tones and smiles of unconvincing joy and tranquility. "We have a house for every day of the year."

"It is rather small, though," Carver said with a sigh. "Not very practical, y'know. You sleep in the same tiny room, eat at the same tiny table and breathe the same tiny amount of air in the same tiny house as your sister does for very longhalf of the day, when it just so happens that the other equally long half you spend working with that same _tiny _sister," he finished with narrowed eyes pointed at Hawke.

She appeared not to have heard him and finished drinking her pint with ease. Then she said, "Emphasis on the tiny," and pointed with her head somewhere down south of her brother.

"As tiny as your brain it is then," Carver muttered back and took an angry sip.

"Well now that is an impressively witty way of paying both me and you a compliment of which only one side can be true!" she uttered back joyfully.

Carver resolved to ignore her and continued complaining to Fenris in a reminiscing tone, "We have a lonely little scrubbing brush you see. Never been used a day since we got it."

"Kind of like Gamlen's only brain cell," Hawke said meanly.

"And not unlike his cheese at all," Carver added grumpily. "It magically disappears way before breakfast in terms of matter, but in terms of smell… beware your nostrils, 'cause it resides forever." He shook his head. "For-eh-ver."

"Just like the dirty clothes… multiplying like rabbits, because that's what they apparently like to do when I'm not around," Hawke said with narrowed eyes to her brother.

"Don't be an ass, Sister," Carver mumbled sharply.

"Well, that's a little bit difficult to accomplish, isn't it?" Hawke retorted nonchalantly. "I mean, unless you'd be so kind so as to paint me with black and white stripes, then I'd be a zebra!"

He listened to all that – fairly amused at her jokes, though he wouldn't admit it – but he was in deep discomfort. Finally, one thing that made him smoothen for once was a good amount of time later after Anders joined the table and had already begun his hot-heated revolutionary speeches to him about how mages deserved the same amount of freedom as he did, to which of course he fired back with his own sharp arguments and flat explanations about the true nature of mages who had enough power to obliterate all the hope of his race of ever living properly. Oh, so you are a hypocrite, because you lived under obstruction of liberty and yet you don't wish mages to have the same privilege … and then it all went down-hill from there, of course.

Hawke did not join in their fight, but rather listened with a brow arching up towards Heaven and perhaps pleading for her own salvation from the impossible demonic bloodlust scorching at the table. The metaphor was not very far away from reality. _He_ was, in a way, impossible. Anders was, in a way, demonic. The fiery pits of hell in their tones were, in a way, filled with bloodlust and scorching. And Hawke, in the one and only way, was sitting at the table.

Several of minutes later characterized solely by the words stated above, Anders went for the bar to order another round of drinks because Hawke pointed it out in a low tone all of a sudden just when the two men were about to jump at each other's throats. As soon as he disappeared, Fenris sighed quietly in annoyance.

Hawke picked up on that, of course, but what truly obliterated his already-historical inconvenience with her was when she leaned back against the wall and said, "Don't waste your breath on him. Explaining anything to that one?" She sighed and accentuating the words in grump, "It's like trying ta' slap the dumb off a retard."

That was the first time he had ever smiled at her, without realizing until after it had happened. She didn't seem to have noticed either.

Of course, their joined annoyance at Anders had quickly turned out to be lacking in character of some dire or ultimately separating argument for Hawke and Fenris to get along. It was as though this mutual apathy towards a singular creature had never even existed.

They'd met at the Hanged Man, bitch at each other a bit softly, head off to do jobs together, bitch at each other with a bit more edge to their tones, then when they finally returned to the Hanged Man after a long day's work of thorough bitching at each other, they bitched some more.

For instance, he remembered one lovely day that only Hawke could make it seem as an oxymoron in less than three seconds of meeting each other.

* * *

**Somewhere in Time, The Hanged Man**

She came by his table that one lovely day lost in the numerous set of all the other lovely days, as any other. "So, what are you doing today?"

Fenris was drinking his ale quietly and calmly muttered, "Nothing."

"You did that yesterday," she said with a smile.

Upon taking another sip, came his forever earthbound tone. "I wasn't finished."

"Jeez, who pissed in your breakfast this morning?" she asked in amusement.

Fenris's eyelids fell halfway and calmly said, "Stop talking."

"But then how will you stop listening to me?" she asked sarcastically. "You could make do with ignoring me right now."

"I'm certainly thriving in that fantastic alternate dimension," Fenris said flatly and drank away nonchalantly.

"You do have a distinct lack of ambition then," Hawke said grumpily. How could he even attempt to pretend she was not there, all hair, and eyes, and breasts and –

Loud. More than once did the tragedy occur that Fenris would sleep in his mansion, perfectly unperturbed and in peace for once, almost mummified in his blankets, and then he would be suddenly woken up by hearing her loud shouts of desperation after her misplaced armour or _whatever _all away from her house to his.

She was loud even when she whispered. Not because her voice was always loud, but more importantly her presence was. All, all… all of her.

"I've never imagined I would want to gag someone so early in a conversation," Fenris replied back in sheer, but calm annoyance. The worse his insults became, the more it meant he was defending himself from all of her. Speaking of loud and gagging, that was actually how he had the idea to gift her the now legendary Magical Ball of Everyone's Fortune.

"What DID you eat for breakfast? Bitch Flakes?" Hawke demanded in controlled outrage.

"I've had snappier comebacks from a bowl of stew," he muttered grumpily as he sipped from his drink.

She sighed and leaned on the wall near his table, "I admire your hard work in offending me, but take a break once in a while. Live, breathe, crack a … no. Better that you don't."

"What now?" Fenris asked curiously.

Hawke rolled her eyes. "Smile."

"No," Fenris said insipidly, eyes dark and mean locked onto hers.

"It wasn't a command. It was more of a suggestion," Hawke corrected with haste.

"I humbly reject your suggestion," Fenris said in tones of unconvincing chivalry.

She sighed. "See that's where you're mistaking. You don't have to try so hard in firing at me," she said with a smile and stretched her arms. "Because the truth is the only thing that's offending me is your face."

A ghost of a smirk came upon his face before he rolled his eyes. "The feeling is mutual. Speaking of which – talk to me when I'm drunker. You will be damn good-looking then."

That was not really the way he spoke to her though. That last sentence had all the strength and abruptness of a quickly crumbling elf, falling deep into the ale of his own denial. Not only was she loud and all there – her presence, her voice, her gorgeous hair, her big tampering eyes, her extremely womanly body, and sadly, her personality – but he couldn't seem to get her out of his head.

"Speaking of which, I would slap you for that pretentious comment, but I don't want to make your pretentious face look any better," Hawke fired back with a laugh and pretended she wanted to slap him as she sat down at the table with him.

She locked her uppity gaze at him.

It annoyed and enchanted him.

"Oh, you just can't keep your hands off of me, can you?" Feris asked with a smirk.

"Yep. I'm quite taken with you. I think about you all the time when you're not with me and I just feel this urgent need to- to-," she pretended grumpily and shook her head while gesturing with her fist. "Damn, I can't quite put my finger on it."

"I think of you when I'm lonely too," Fenris said without looking at her. He took another sip from his ale. "Then I am content to be alone."

How insanely talented they were at telling each other the truth in the tones of mean and tones of bark.

"You sound reasonable... time to up my medication ," Hawke said grumpily and took his pint to drink from it.

"Pfteh," Fenris muttered in annoyance. "Drunken witch."

She dropped the pint with a loud bang on the table as she finished drinking her cocktail of nonchalance. "I've been called worse by better."

* * *

"Never mumble some sarcastic shit to somebody who can obviously fuck you up," Varric used to say. Well now, obviously they had both secretly and solemnly swore in their mind – in those dire few seconds after his impertinent mage accusations when they first met – that this was a challenge worthy to take on. And set on fire. And throw alcohol in afterwards. And some combustion grenades for decorative purposes.

Yes, they were both terribly stubborn. Life was not fair, it simply was a bit fairer than death. Death was like a woman on her period that, as far as he came to understand, consequently needed to get whatever she wanted whenever and however she wanted to – or to hell with all the quiet and peace. Yes, Death was stubborn. And neither of them feared death.

After all, battles shared were battles won. Right from the start, in her eyes, Fenris was an annoying wiseass who tended to make everyone he met want to suddenly kill him. Thus, when she had that much in common with someone, she couldn't help but like him a little.

Darting back to the bright and shiny present, he resolved to snap out of his massive brooding and remember what she last said. "Back with the insults then." Ah, yes.

"Whatever makes you happy," he said nonchalantly, lying back on the bed as if he were destroyed by exhaustion. "Ugh." His tone was flat. "I am dead."

"Dear lunatic, whatever put you in an early grave?" Hawke asked in pretend-amazement.

His eyes were closed, but he grumped with the same constant talent. "You."

She quickly raised her eyebrows.

He put a weary hand over his face. "Looking for you into every gutter and barrel in half of Antiva City – to be more specific." She encircled the bed and went by his side, watching him.

"Only half?" she mused lightly with a smile.

"Halfway through I stopped and asked myself how I would feel if I were in your shoes." Then he grinned deviously and arched an eyebrow. "Then I realized I would have liked to be thought a lesson."

Hawke raised her eyebrows and grinned flirtatiously. "And here I thought you promised you'd give me a thorough disciplining with a more physical approach."

Fenris brushed his hair fastidiously away from his face. "Ah, I'd forgotten about that. You are quite right, though." He rose only on his elbows and smirked. "With your reckless and impulsive behaviour, no doubt you should have spent more time over someone's knee."

"Are you inclined to volunteer?" she asked playfully.

"Please," he said meanly, his voice the very sound of rolling eyes, and dismissing her with a grimace. She grimaced back mockingly, but shortly after, he reassumed his arrogant smirk. "Do I have a choice? One could hardly call it volunteering when it seems all the existing and invented gods from all possible religions and creeds are weeping, screaming and thrashing," he gestured in-between, "sending thunders from the skies as they do so, pleading and begging for someone to do it."

"Ah, right. You're truly without faults, aren't you?" she asked musingly while crossing her arms. "Mythologizing yourself already as a cruel victim of fate turned suddenly into a hero overnight." She started pacing and gesturing mockingly with joy. "Hurtled into the chaos that I bring on this world with my impossible persona, and there you are," she stopped and stretched her arms, "the mighty Fenkis McBraveheart coming to forever leave the burn of his Mighty Palm of Holy Judgement over my impertinent buttcheeks."

Calm, joyful sarcasm. Good sign.

"Well, it is not a duty for the faint-hearted," he said arrogantly and grinned at her with half-lidded eyes. "And such an imperative duty it is."

Wait, why was his tone so…? Holy Mother of… or better yet Santo cazzo di Madre… to better fit the scenery. She froze for several too many seconds, wondering if she should pinch herself and see if she didn't happen to be dreaming. That was not sarcasm. That was _not _sarcasm, was it? For the first time **ever**, and for all intents and purposes, Fenris flirted with her –deliberately _and _correctly. Suddenly, she wondered what exactly changed. Alas, her mind was on strike and the world went on. It seemed a good time to stop staring at him with an idiotic look of disbelief and say something.

"I… uh…" she stuttered, her throat stiffening. Maker's breath, whatever came over her? She felt completely disarmed for once, for no apparent reason. She felt like a shy little girl, suddenly clumsy and awkward, with her tongue crawling in a cowardly box of unjustified shame.

"You- uh?" Fenris demanded with a dark, piercing look and a quiet air of masculine superiority.

_PLEASE go back to the insults. Just one little, stupid, even unoriginal snarky comment. A small '_Hey! Look into the mirror and, all ye proud people of Kirkwall, behold the laughing-stock of half of Antiva's well-trained assassins, the impossible clown mage dressed in clothes gayer than Senechal Bran's pretentious risen eyebrow'_. No? Is that too much to ask? Maker's bloody breath, what in the dreaded pits of the Void is with me this morning?_

"I am inclined… to… endorse… with your… perspective… of things," she mumbled. A wild comparison, but almost regrettably accurate in terms of how she felt she looked like, was that she behaved like a psychotic noble half-dying in seizures at the cruel fate of an untreated case of syphilis. Remarkably common and pathetic way to die between the nobles, 'twas true. Seneschal Bran was first on her secret wishlist. No doubt, unbeknownst to the public eye, the man returned her feelings with the same amount of undisclosed joy.

Fenris arched an eyebrow. "Are you… having a stroke?"

"No, I'm just being sarcastic," Hawke lied quickly. "And tired." Let that sentence be at least half-true and the Maker could frown and bark later.

"You are always sarcastic," Fenris muttered quietly.

She pressed her lips. "Nope. Sometimes I'm asleep," she mused.

His eyebrow remained up. "Be that as it may, what I meant was that the nature of your statement which you allegedly deem as," he gestured quotation marks, "_sarcastic_, did not really match your tone."

"I decided I should leave people to guess the nature of my statements without giving away so many helpful hints," she smiled with a shrug.

"Without a matching tone, you would sound like an idiot," Fenris said rather calmly.

"I don't mind. Thinking I'm an idiot gives people something to feel smug about," Hawke said with a wide grin. He was probably put in the pile of those people. "Why should I disillusion them?"

Fenris gazed at her flatly. "Why don't I believe you?" he asked with half-lidded eyes, an obvious edge in his voice.

"Well who died and made you Lord Seeker of Truth?" she asked meanly and crossed her arms. She was not grumpy or angry. Good sign.

"I do not truly know," he said, and cupped his chin. "All I saw were the purple velvety boots of the person in question, when I bowed knightly and the honorary title had been bestowed upon me sword-on-shoulder as the rite of chivalry commonly goes." Her eyebrow was reaching the heavens as he said it. He smirked at her and shrugged, "What? You've heard what I named my sword."

"Half of that name fits. What do roses have to do with this fantastical scenario?" asked Hawke, pacing to and fro as if she was a Guard-Captain interrogating a suspect.

"They are purely decorative," Fenris said calmly. "Like your sarcasm."

She grinned. "And here I was thinking you were a bit _slow_ like the time it takes for a rose to bloom, what with so much asking and not knowing anything," she said with half-lidded eyes.

… Ah, that smile, which was undoubtedly a pretty feature, was never so pretty as when her sprightly little phrase had a scratch lurking in it. Which was always the case.

This Fenris resolved to forever hold in his soul. It was her charm. It was her aura. Yes, it was her soul. Fearlessness and creativity in pure form, and converted into sarcasm and wit for the outside world to better understand.

He pressed his lips and gave her a smile. "Exactly my point."

"The Knight sure does like his pretty delicate courteous maidens with the sense of humor of a dining table," she muttered.

"Why, aren't you the well-informed one about the Knight's secret fancies this fine morning?" he asked mockingly, deep flat tone nonetheless.

"The only thing in that sentence that's correct is _morning_," she said and crossed her arms again. "So much for the truth part of your honorary title."

Fenris chuckled briefly. "Well I hear one does not accomplish much by using the truth in the business of chasing pretty delicate courteous maidens."

"Good thing I'm not a pretty delicate courteous maiden," she said confidently.

His grin grew devilish. "Good thing indeed." He closed his eyes again with nonchalance. "Yes, you are about as delicate as the titanic blow of a mighty hammer and as courteous as the savage battle cries of barbarian conquests." He weaved his hand dismissively, eyes still closed. "Thus it is automatically assumed that you are out of my area of interest."

_Blasted, I should've seen that one coming. Cheap victory, Fenris. Cheap victory. _

"Oh, why aren't you a big load of crap this fine morning," Hawke said meanly.

"Indeed, it is a fine morning," Fenris said flatly, waving.

"Such rudeness, Sir," Hawke mused. "Why must you wound me?"

"Believe me, sometimes that seems to be the only thing in the world which makes perfect sense to me," Fenris muttered, everlasting grump in his flat tone. "Consider it a necessary evil."

"A little too soon to already be joking about that," Hawke said with a crooked smile.

Kaffas. Of course… how could he forget. He was joking out of context. He didn't mean to muse about what happened the night before, when he brutally assaulted her in his cruelly idiotic fit of murderous rage. His face grew dark and his smile died in an instant. "I apologize for that." He swallowed heavily, reality hitting him square in the jaw. "Truly I can't begin to-"

"You know I'm a firm believer in letting everyone follow their natural course of thoughts and choose to make their own decisions and yadda yadda –don't get me wrong, but…" Hawke started abruptly and exhaled. She raised her finger at him and bent forward. She locked her firm, decisive eyes onto his startled, carefully listening ones. "If you so much as give me another tormented look of guilt or shame and think yourself low, that you've done wrong by me or something," she said as he listened to her with eyes wide open, "So help me Fenris, I will _murder_ you."

Silence. He remained silent. Swallowed heavily as he said it. Their gazes remained locked together while she waited for him to reply. Violence, yes. Threatening with violence –those were not the threats heavily infused with mockery of a sarcastic girl, nor were they some faintly whispered platitudes of some defenceless high aristocratic maiden . One could only guess how powerfully a strange woman like Hawke must have felt for him at the moment, truthfully threating his worthless bones. She looked rather irresistible to him now. How long before actual violence though? There was still time.

"Do you understand?" she pressed in a high tone.

"Affirmative," he stated in a perfect flat tone.

"Over and out," she said cockily, standing up straight again.

"Suddenly it seems only fair that I should make my own list of regrets on my deathbed," he said innocently, remembering her saying the same thing the night before when he tackled her. Ironically yes, now he was the one being threatened in all the seriousness of tone that Hawke could show him for three or more seconds in B-sharp before her tone would automatically go back in the more familiar B-snark. "I shall trust that you give me a proper eulogy, if it comes to that."

"Nothing like a bit of irony with those famous last words, eh?" Hawke said strongly. "I suggest you have breakfast first."

Fenris broke into soft laughter. "Everything. Everything in the time I have spent in your company was pure irony."

"Then I guess there's no need for irony to make a special effort today," Hawke said calmly and turned for the door. "See you downstairs."

His voice came abruptly commanding from behind. "You are not going anywhere."

Fenris could have tried to abstain from dragging her back by the old blue coat, but then again, like all the others times in the dark pits and catacombs, he didn't. More importantly, he didn't want to. With all the force in his weary bones, he quickly caught her by that clownish coat and she flew right back and fell on him with a _What the f-._ Her cheek landed bumping into his, all afire with predictable inconvenience. Her red hair cascaded all over his chin, his neck and his chest, and his arms were encaging her strongly by the waist. He held her tighter and inhaled, perhaps to test how much one can press before she lost her temper and set him on fire. Or worse, hit him. Taunting death right before breakfast was just another Tuesday for him.

"Yes?" she asked, calm and contained, but her cheeks said otherwise.

Fenris kissed one of those incredibly angry and revolted cheeks with all the power and firmness of a quite exhausted, still sleep-deprived, but fairly fighting-fit young man.

"Now you can go," he said calmly, eyes alight with a sudden sensuality to match his victory.

"If you are going to do that, would you mind not jostling the bed so much while you're suffocating me?" Hawke said in protest.

Fenris arched an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Perhaps you could roll around and down on the floor then."

"Perhaps not," she said calmly. "I'd rather take my chances with the lunatic in my bed."

"Technically it is my bed," Fenris said flatly, running his fingers softly at the back of her hair with the perfect mask of nonchalance.

"Well if you really want to swim in pretentious technicalities, then I guess you really lost _the bet_ this time," Hawke said and smiled arrogantly at the last word.

"Not quite," came Fenris's deep and firm tone that said he had a following persuasive wiseass argument. "But if you really wish me to lose the bet, I will find the time to go in a dark corner and weep," then his green eyes closed halfway with an air of sensuality and his voice grew deeper, "after I apologize to the patron for the bed breaking."

One must give him credit for managing to say in one decisive sentence that he was both a sensitive and a savage man with a particular fancy, beyond the intended sarcasm. The last part though, not very sarcastic, mind you. What she saw and heard was a genuine masculine ardent vibe of firmness and singular desire for her. She was melting in his grip now, overly seduced by his confident words with the fullness of a tigerish appetite. Yes, what Fenris was to her, now more than ever, was almost helplessly irresistible.

Ah, pull yourself together.

"Said the elf who kissed my cheek as if he's saying goodbye to his aunt," she said sharply, taunting eyebrow arching to the skies, indomitable eyes locked onto his.

He swallowed heavily and appeared he was trying to say something.

"I'm trying to treat you like a lady," Fenris said finally, hands still clutching at her waist, more for fear of falling in some dark pit of angst with that sudden honest confession. Gazing at her big lovely eyes, he waited stiffly for her answer.

"Aw, that's sweet," Hawke said with a smile. "Now knock it off." She caught him by the back of his head and made him push his lips into hers with all the passion of an equally tired being and all the more stubborn to play woo-the-funny-warrior-mage for a few seconds. In this newly appointed state of affairs, Fenris quickly grasped harder around her waist and clamped her mouth with a more ardent kiss. Petal-soft, yet equally strong, the motion of their lips grew more fervent as she ran her fingers more aggressively through his hair. The cresting pleasure in his bones could kill an army with a single blow had it been possible to convert it to hostility. But he didn't dare to force her mouth open while perfectly sober. She turned her body around on him while still locking them in their fiery kiss, and held it there for several moments, Fenris losing himself to her maddening command. Only not entirely, for his body was issuing more urgently.

There he sought to hold her still, grasping tightly around her back ever more pressed against him, kissing her once, kissing her twice, woulda-shoulda a thousand more times had the thought travelled in his mind that this might be their last, refusing to let her go.

He was in Hell. As his hands inadvertently gripped tightly at her hips, Hawke withdrew suddenly. His green eyes flinched and quickly protested. His face, of course, was flushed; much altered. His frown of inconvenience was almost unbearable.

"Not enough?" Hawke asked playfully.

"No," Fenris said with an edge to his voice, not a chance to yield his scowl.

He drew her close again stubbornly and very fast with his assertive grasp, and she kissed him again, remarking through her laughter that he was a veritable furnace of passion. It didn't occur to her, or to him, that this was the first and most perfect positioning of their bodies they had woken up being in for the sole purpose of playing around with fire – featherlike on top of him, not crushing him with some tremendous weight, legs parted and encaging his hips, open way for him to press her down and grab her by that one of maddening round parts of her he desperately wanted to touch again, but didn't have the chance to since that one night a million years ago. This was the one thought that didn't seem to have arrived into their sanctum of reason.

Although something _did _arrive. Knocked. Never mind the ears she had previously licked some days ago in the carriage. There was another pointy part of Fenris going after her now.

"You're awfully ripe for a dead man," Hawke said with a grin, in-between a heated kiss.

"I prefer to die well-endowed," came Fenris's voice deep with arousal, then drew her back into his urgent hungry lips.

* * *

**A few of those long minutes later…**

"All I see is a fancy bed with a not-so-fancy half-dead elf growing roots to it," Varric muttered angrily as they opened the door.

"Oh this isn't over," Isabela said in annoyance.

"Would you stop bullshitting the bullshitter, Rivaini?" Varric sighed and walked away. "You're ruining my already ruined morning."

Isabela stretched her arms wide in frustration. "She _was _there! You gotta – "

"Who?" she heard Fenris ask hoarsely as he rose wearily from the bed, rubbing his eyes with the slowness of a dazed person.

The violent frown on Isabela's face was dangerously close to escorting it with an even more violent punch in his face. But frowning caused wrinkles. She didn't need that kind of trouble. This wasn't over. She walked away without so much as a proper "Mornin', dollface".


	2. Trust The Word Of An Antivan

**Have you wondered how it would be like to see Zevran and Armand go all over Fenris with giving him advice on love? Well, there you have it. Oh, trust me. Your jaw will drop. At least Fenris's will.**

**Please review D: I haven't gotten many recently and I'm working my ass off here. Pretty please.**

* * *

**A few of those long seconds before…**

"What were you saying earlier?" Fenris asked her in-between the now more than ever heated kisses. "That I was a furnace of passion?"

She continued the ardent kiss, and for a moment she muttered, "I don't quite remember." She kissed him again. "I cannot trust my mouth in these situations."

A belated gasp came upon her after Fenris suddenly and with no shame grabbed and harshly squeezed the roundness at the back of her pants.

"Well what about now?" he demanded with a devil's contained smirk. He gave her pale neck a kiss with as much gentle a peck as the opposite way in which his hand was making its conquest on her.

"I'm positively parched," she said with a smile.

She bent down on him again and he caught her hair with his free and more polite and knightly hand and ran his fingers through it as to bring her closer. His right hand was a despicably evil scoundrel and had a mind of its own; and he felt shameful pleasure from it, considering how long a time it had been since that one night in the courtyard a million years ago when he first cupped a feel. And that was only a game, because she did it first as means to annoy the hell out of him. How unfortunate for her, that she didn't even remotely foresee the hell she did bring out of him. Now his hand came back from the dead and sought to bring that hell with it voluntarily.

However, in such moments where logic was obliterated straight from that one fascinating source called _the brain _– fascinating because it never seemed to be servicing him with its originally intended functions – he resolved to ignore it and let that dreaded evil hand of his do as it pleased to the limit of her permissions. Yes, she seemed to be quite alright with it. Her cheeks were flushed and burning horribly as his tongue moved serpentlike into hers. And positively parched.

Oh, such deceitful euphemisms for one who detests all euphemisms, and with reason. He kissed her hard and eagerly and felt her body soften, felt her lock to him for one precious instant, and then the flash of icy coldness as she pulled away.

Fenris's scowl of inconvenience honoured her with its appearance the millionth time that morning.

"Do you hear that?" she asked in a sudden rush.

_Yes, it is the sound of utter exasperation, magically brought out from me in insanely gigantic amounts, which is highly ironic considering it is the work of an impossibly tiny being in comparison._

But not a second passed and his long elven ear twitched, as his senses came back too to honour them with an appearance. There were two separate pairs of footsteps. One loud and hunky, accompanied by quieter tones of comedy. One more cat-like, accompanied by way louder tones of bullshit. One could easily be fooled in trying to guess which belonged to who from the two rogues, really.

One could even manage to decipher their conversation.

_Something-something-something – breasts_, Isabela

_Something-something-something –bullshit,_ Varric.

Yes, now the thought finally arrived into their sanctum of reason, that Hawke was all on top of Fenris in a bed in which she was previously tackled to death, then slept in with him beside her, and in which they were presently exploring the depths of each other's mouths as if to be sure neither would be drowning in fever.

They quickly shared an awkward, stunned look of what-the-hell-do-we-do-now. Perhaps she could get away with saying Fenris magically choked on his own self-hatred and she resolved to save him by giving him a proper mouth-to-mouth taste of her own self-righteousness.

She wondered what would have been the more mind-blowing news either from that, her sudden return, or the simple fact that she was in his room without a black eye to match her historical discourtesy.

"Shit," she said and tried to get off of him. He caught her in place with a look of irritation. There was still time, _apparently_.

"Just for the record, because I will surely forget what with my mind going terribly numb for about a month now," Fenris started with an edge to his tone. He caught her firmly by the collar of her coat and brought her only an inch away from his bright and angry eyes. She looked at him startled and listened to him when he said in a very dominant tone, "I cannot quite articulate what has been going on for the last month, but now that I have got you," he grasped her coat tighter and brought her even closer to his eyes to make it clearer, all while breathing tigerishly on her face with an air of complete determination, "I am not letting you go."

He wasn't pertaining to _right now_, she got that much.

…But the statement threw her off completely. The footsteps became louder. Her brain was becoming deafer.

"You're not?" she almost whispered with eyes unbelievably stunned.

Fenris stared at her unyieldingly in irritation. As if he didn't know her game by now once they would return to Kirkwall. "Do you think I'm an idiot?" he asked with a scratch in his tone.

"No," Hawke said, still caught in his impossible grip and nose bumping into his. "I've just escaped from a den of idiots yesterday, so I'm well familiar with the breed, and you're something else entirely." Fenris narrowed his eyes with annoyance most adorable and she narrowed her eyes as well, with determination most profound. "I am, however, hoping you're not a terribly good shot." She showed him her fist.

Of course. Violence. His eyes were rolling and reaching the back of his head.

But not a moment passed and Fenris exhaled and quickly caught her by the hips and pushed her on the side. The sound of footsteps and of their voices suggested they were going down the hallway now. Yes, his mind was indeed, numb, because there was no more time now. He looked to his right and saw Hawke going for the window.

"Did you leave the window of my room open?" she asked quickly. (He had previously appointed himself gatekeeper and held her key in his pocket because, as he ever-so nicely pointed out, she was a giant klutz and if she would somehow get in her hands the key that held the universe together, shortly thereafter the Apocalypse would certainly be upon them)

"Yes, but what does that–"

"See ya," she waved nonchalantly. In a blasted second she turned into a black bird and took off.

Oh, so she was the bird which showed up and startled everyone when it caught the wheel from the puzzle in its talons and dropped it to them all with the pretense of going to "take a leak." Numb yet again, for the thought didn't really have time to travel in his mind that he should now become mortified with Hawke turning into _a bird. _As if that was just another Tuesday. Well, yes, it was just another Tuesday indeed, all with the crazy and the inexplicable darted everywhere around them as if they were silently begging for it. Wonders… wonders… He was growing too old to finish that sentence. The redundancy of it was almost repugnant.

His head fell on the pillow much to pretend he was asleep and just the same to cradle the collapse of his poor little mind. Too many wondrous calamities and ancient sorceries for one day. And the next fifty years at least.

* * *

**A few of those moments later…**

Fenris came out of his room after Isabela gave him the murderous look that said she was going to hurt him soon. Whatever did he do?

"Varric!" resounded Hawke's voice most joyful further down the hallway.

"Hawke!" Varric shouted and to everyone's shock now in the hallway, he hugged her by the waist with the mighty grip of a lion. "Andraste's ass I thought you were dead."

Her voice and face came very smug as she hugged him back tightly, "Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm sorry oh mighty indestructible princess, I have a great imagination and I can't help not using it," Varric said sarcastically.

"Oh, thank those stupid gods, I thought I would have to go beg Armand to give me some money," Isabela shouted and came to hug Hawke too. "Now _that _is a pathetic way to die."

"Ah, I love how you stay so true," Hawke said joyfully and pat Isabela on the back. Her eyes came now on Fenris. It was high time one of them pretended they just came across each other.

"Glad I'm not dead?" Hawke asked Fenris with a smile while still in Isabela's hug.

"I knew you weren't dead," Fenris said calmly, leaning on the wall with his arms crossed. Hawke's throat stiffened fearing he would blow her cover, but he shortly drew up a smug grin to match his smug posture. "There'd be terrified little angels and spirits crossing the Veil all desperate to get away."

She narrowed her eyes and pretended to scratch the air for his stinging comment.

"How are you? What happened?" Varric shouted impatiently.

"Oh, nothing much," she said calmly. "What about you?"

"Cut it Pantaloons before I shoot you in the face," Varric demanded seriously.

"Ah, fine," she said and her shoulders sank. "I saw the Warden. More like hallucinated. You know? Zevran's wife? I took off to chase her thinking if I impress her enough with my stunning acrobatics we might just stop at some street café in the city and share war stratagems, listen to her stories about the Blight and discuss the fate of Thedas over tea. Then I kinda blacked out and I woke up in the Bone Pit with some elf reciting poetry to me in Antivan. After that I thought I'd just sleep it off."

Little did she think to take into account that she had not yet told Fenris about the waking up in the brothel with an elf part and he would quickly misinterpret and in good reason. She didn't seem to be lying about anything else, so this had to be true just as well.

This was very quickly the case. She looked across Isabela at Fenris who was still leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, but giving her a very dark, flat look through his hair which could only mean _murder_. The claws of his gauntlets were a squeeze away from drawing out blood out of his arm.

Great…

Meanwhile, Varric lifted his eyebrows in amazement and shook his head. "And there came the most calm and equally crazy sentence said in history since Andraste told Maferath: _Despair not for your betrayal was Maker-blessed and it returned me to His side_."

"Since when do you know the Chant of Light?" Hawke asked with a laugh.

"Hello? Are you deaf? Blind? Hit in the head?" Varric shouted in protest and stretched his arms. His tone was very friendly in its sincerity, "Worried and mortified for two days straight, Hawke."

Hawke remained silent and seemed to ponder something as she frowned. She retained that frown as she looked at both Varric and Fenris. "You two are weird. I'm gonna take a bath now."

* * *

**Sometime later**

Finally after so much time spent in those clothes in the filth and havoc of those Antivan catacombs, she could take a bath. A long, hot, well-deserved damn bath. She went down the stairs of the palazzo-inn and into the bathing rooms all made of luxurious white marble and adorned with wall-hanging perfumed roses. It was most beautiful.

Just when she was about to go to the ladies room of those charming and breath-taking premises, she heard the silent flaring nostrils of murder greeting her from behind.

"Taking a bath are we?" came Fenris's flat tone.

"No, I am," Hawke said calmly as she turned around.

"A wise choice," Fenris replied nonchalantly as he approached her. "All with cleansing the filth off from your recent _adventuring_."

"That's usually how a bath goes," she replied with a lifted eyebrow.

Fenris studied her for a second, as if she had a spot on her face. They locked their gazes together as she kept her arching eyebrow.

"Well… I'm off to my bath now," she said impatiently and turned around.

His nostrils flared and he turned around to go. "That one will not be enough," he muttered with masked insipidness.

Hawke turned back with a frown and asked in a controlled tone, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Fenris stopped his pace and turned his head half-way with nonchalance. "It means what it means."

"Oh, I was afraid _meaning _was making a special effort not to be annoyingly redundant today," she said with a scowl.

Fenris returned her scowl in silence. Finally he said in a tone of inconvincible tranquility, "It has recently lost its ambition."

"Well why don't you make an effort to bring it back?" Hawke demanded firmly.

"I don't see the point in trying," Fenris said insipidly.

She sighed and crossed her arms. "Maybe you could borrow some from that high ambition of your passive aggressiveness. That one seems to be plenty loaded."

"My what?" Fenris asked with an indomitable gaze.

She sighed. "Why are you here?" Hawke fired back to destroy his stubborn deflections.

He remained calm and content. He pointed at his old clothes. "The same reason you are."

"Oh, to cleanse yourself from the filth of your recent adventuring," Hawke said while accentuating the words. "I'm sure."

Fenris turned his gaze to the men's room and his face became a little weaker in hiding his annoyance. He took off towards it as he muttered quietly, "Not _my _adventuring."

The impossible scowl on Hawke's face couldn't get any bigger. She lost her temper. "How about you look me in the eye when you call me a whore?"

Fenris flinched and turned around. She kept her self-assured and strong gaze locked onto his quickly crumbling one.

Cornered and such, he turned his gaze straight to her eyes and calmly said, "I tend to tell the truth when I look you in the eye."

She crossed her arms again. "Do you also tend to stand still when you stare Death in the eye?" she asked with a heightened annoyance toned.

"Not really, although I prefer to die well-informed," Fenris said calmly.

"Well, then," Hawke said with an edge to her voice. "Good thing you didn't look me in the eye or your famous last words would have been belonged to the land of insane and wild exaggerations." She uncrossed her arms as he watched her firmly. "You can add that to your list of last regrets, since it's uncharacteristic of you to be _unfair_, right?"

"That is quite right," Fenris said with a chivalrous nod. "The only question remaining," he said and lifted his eyebrows as he looked up, "is if Death has any more interest with me," he lowered his gaze back at her with half-lidded eyes, "now that I haven't explicitly stated my insane and wild exaggeration."

Hawke finally smirked and rolled her eyes. "She's fairly annoyed with you and your clever semantics," she said, then innocently mused, "but she'll live. If that makes sense."

Fenris returned her smile shortly and he lowered his head in shame and scratched his head. "It seems I've dodged a fatal arrow there, haven't I?"

Ah, it would have been stupid to be mad at him now. She couldn't expect him to be fair with expressing his doubts, jealousy or discomfort properly, unless it was through anger and violence. And he did vow in his mind that he would never lose his temper with her again. She had to appreciate that.

She'd have to give him a medal.

"Next time, you can save us both some time and nerves and simply ask," Hawke said with a smirk.

"How simple it sounds, yet in practice," Fenris said with an ashamed sigh. "A bit more complicated than that."

"Well, that's what I'm here for!" she said with a joyful kind of grump. "Explaining and reminding everyone they're idiots."

"How generous and not at all arrogant of you," Fenris said sarcastically.

"It's not arrogance when it's the truth," Hawke said with a smug grin. She turned to the door. "Now if you'll –" Fenris approached her from behind. "Uhm."

"Yes?" he asked nonchalantly.

"See this?" Hawke pointed at the sign of a lady with a hat on the door. "This one has a pretentious little hat. Do you have a hat, Fenris?"

He lifted an irritated eyebrow. His tone was calm, "Well can't you just give me your little pretentious _smart-ass_ and I could wear it like one? Half the time it does block my sunlight, after all."

She remained silent for a moment, trying to sink it in with an amused smile. "Wow. You're starting to sound like me."

"Regrettably," Fenris stung calmly.

"Sad isn't it?" Hawke asked cockily with a smile.

"That it is not so _little_?" Fenris asked nonchalantly.

She gave a mocking glance to his butt. "Well now, it would be quite a tragedy if we sounded _and _looked like one another, now, wouldn't it?"

"That seems fair," Fenris said with a smile. There had to be some sarcastic comment lurking in the air. "I think we should focus on the positive side and cherish our differences."

"Pssht. Since when?" Hawke asked unconvinced.

"Since I see it can be rather productive when they come together," Fenris said with a shrug.

"Yeah. Crazy redhead with extreme rage issues on the battlefield and a blue glowing snowglobe of perfect calm and tranquility," she said while shaking her head and stretching her arms. "I see your point. We complete each other yadda yadda, bull-"

"Indeed. And imagine we had a child," Fenris said abruptly while looking away. Hawke froze and her jaw landed somewhere in the Deep Roads.

_Please let there be a follow-up punch-line, _she pleaded in her mind.

Fenris leaned on a wall nearby in slow motions as if to deliberately harrow the pits of the Void upon her with the waiting. He finally continued, "With your quick wit," Fenris pointed and then drew up a smirk, "and my stunning good looks."

_Thank the Maker. _

She resumed her joyful face. "Or with my botched face and your remarkable stupidity."

"Now _that_ would be sad," Fenris said calmly.

* * *

**Sunrise, Near the Bridge of Liberty **

Hawke and Fenris had up until now slept together in three different beds.

Three times they had slept together. Next to one another together. Not together-together. But it was still more or less together, wasn't it? He sighed.

His thoughts almost seem to have a striking resemblance to the elven blood mage's inane rambling, to which he would always roll his eyes. Sometimes within, if his head hurt too much because of Hawke's loud voice overshadowing everyone else's. He would always feel a little grateful for that.

First time, it was out of pure fate and necessity, in The Sunken Orlesian's Inn. He was perfectly sober, but he had only just met her. And at that time he was battling between the wondrous idea of simply killing her and the truly starlit idea of only just _slightly _killing her.

Second time, he was dead-drunk. Not the usual even stingier Fenris full of the rampant tones of a mean and grumpy drunk, but past the point of his natural character and down the hill.

Down on the ground.

Uppity back and in her bed.

When he awoke, it seemed only natural that he should be there. Two seconds later he would have really truly hoped that his lyrium haze could also slowly just make him fade away and disappear. Yes, like a withering flower or a vapour in the dessert. A wisp. Poof. Yes, and indeed two more of those seconds passed and only afterwards had it been truly the most awkward moment of his life, because his courage was lost somewhere in the cruel threads of time, and so was hers, all tangled up into a following wind of masked nonchalance. And lest not he forget, he impulsively tackled her with kisses the night before this happened, because at the time, it made perfect sense to him to follow her into her room and glue and sink or melt himself into her simply because he preferred her long and wild crown of thick red hair to the duller-looking and much duller-feeling one coming from a horse that made the outer layer of his armchair.

The third time, well, he was just dead. Correction; he was dead with anger and exhaustion and this time nothing in the world made more sense to him than to throw her on the bed and demand of her to tell him where she went, even if he knew she probably had no idea all with being overly exerted by the lack of health and magic in her by the time they had escaped. As Hawke suddenly showed up and took her really nice, very smooth, much sluggish time to sloooowly build up to her usual number of comedy… he had lost it.

Most times it was rather like an honor to be mad at her.

Yes, one could say she was very _lazy_ with her sarcasm. One could say she put a lot of honest effort into being exactly that. And when she was truly "lazy"_, _he was truly very "nice"with his anger, as if the most impertinent thing he could do was simply to strike her with all the fearsome might of his scowl.

And then came upon morning and it was rather bright and perfect this time.

Except for the fact that, pardon the scratch in the phrase – he woke up with morning wood and she woke up with morning wouldn't.

Ah. Come back, you one thought.

Let us be more organized.

Bed no. 1: Sober, wanted to kill her only slightly in his thoughts, only mumbled in competitive snarkiness upon morning about the bed breaking and such.

Bed no. 2: Drunk, wanted to do something _else_ and very _a lot _to her, and _not _in his thoughts, positively attempted to… what was the word… _jump_ her, no arguing or snarkiness upon morning as he recalled, only yet again mumbled something about not losing the bet because of technicalities and bed breaking and such.

Bed no. 3: Exhausted and dead-worried, angry to the bone, wanted to void her and not in his thoughts, wanted to do a lot more to her and not in his thoughts, wanted to protect her and never let go of her and not in his thoughts.

Yes, now it seemed that the truly one, two actually, very different things – ah, three ideas – about Bed no.3 were – _Make a list, _he screamed at himself.

- That everything he had ever felt for Hawke, all those separate feelings, not only grew more fervent and combined each other into a rampant kettle of boiling blood-rosy soup of emotion, but it, or _they – _all of those feelings into one simply blew out of cosmic proportions.

- Upon morning, although they both had that distinct scratch lurking in their tones, those were remarks made with _calm, joyful, playful _behavior. And deliberate, courageous flirtations. And dragging her into his strong embrace and ardent kisses _without being provoked, _or drunk, or threatened_, _or worried, or angry, or uppity – well, one could argue about **up**pity –

- This had been the best morning of his life.

Joy of joys. That was not sarcasm.

He never guessed. He thought, he pondered, he deduced, he decided. But he never guessed.

And he concluded it was happiness.

Almost content with his triumph, suddenly he also concluded that in all his defensiveness, fear, worry, the numerous shocks he had lived through in the last two weeks… He displaced his perspective. Not entirely, but still.

Yes, yes, he was enchanted by her sarcasm. The fine tunes of sharp and flat coming from him, the mean, the grumpy and the joyful little jokes and the mighty battle of wits galore from both. Yes. But it had been quite a long time since they had truly argued or went at each other's throats. When was that last? … Somewhere possibly down the lines of when she started to thoroughly teach him how to read and write. Preposterous, that was months ago… Sure, some little comments even he could not abstain from doing afterwards. After all, he was an ocean of grumpy sarcastic comments muttered in hush and calm tones, perhaps to be perfectly in tune to match Hawke's loud and joyful equally sarcastic comments – now he realized. They balanced each other out.

He must be remarkably stupid indeed.

They were making jokes. Playing, musing, satirizing, humoring, whatever. Not all of it had some scratch lurking in it. More than half the time that was the case –of simple jokes and having fun, laughing with each other instead of at each other… a half of the other half was more of a snarky-uppity approach, and the other half of the other half was but a mere fullness of _calm and peaceful dialogues_. And they had a lot of those too. Indeed, they had managed to cover almost the whole of worldly and galactic subjects and topics, except little short of their secretive despair, the ghost of their separate pasts and lastly, their true feelings for each other. There was still time for that… Not today. Today, as was yesterday and the day before, and forever tomorrow until _something _or _someone _caught on fire, nothing seemed more appropriate than for them to continue in this manner. Not the secretive, defensive part, but the musing and joking in calm or lively tones part.

They were funny people.

The sky was blue and the grass was green.

Yes, now it made sense.

He was displacing his thoughts and worries to better suit his private fears. He would never forgive himself if he had lost his temper again with such a change in his manner as to almost be on the verge of killing her out of sheer raging idiocy. Or idiotic rage. Both made a fine case out of him after all.

He felt it though. He felt it all, that she understood him, that she accepted him, that she resolved in her mind to even better understand him. That she intended not to defend herself at all because she trusted that he would never do it. And she proved him right. His rage came as quick aflame as those raging flames quickly died. She was ready to understand. Emphasis on the ready. Without pressing him. No, that would be a wicked thing to do. He appreciated this liberty she gave him.

Things were going well, either way.

It was clear now that he had to take delight in this happier turn of events and enjoy it. Enjoy life, enjoy her, enjoy it all, no matter what she chose to do with him. The curious feeling of content, of being fulfilled, of feeling so remarkably free, was but a stone's throw away. He only had to make sure he was not going to deliberately throw the stone in his face, as his unconscious automatisms usually dictated.

Finally, his brooding was slapped away when Armand and Zevran approached him as he was sitting at a white fancy table in front of that restaurant – or more realistically speaking, a more luxurious tavern – with outdoor seating from across the street. They went there in their first night in Antiva City and it seemed perfectly deprived of all souls since the sun had barely even risen yet.

The chilly morning was accompanied by a very beautiful mantle of fog all around the city. It made all the colors simply become more radiant and contrasting to the current air of coldness and paleness that Mother Nature had bestowed upon the world.

"His face does have a brooding sensuality to it, you were right, my friend," Zevran said joyfully as they each took a seat at the table.

"Pardon?" Fenris asked in sudden discomfort.

"Ah, nothing," Zevran said with a smile and conquered the table with his fine elbows. "We were just discussing beauty. The beauty of dead people."

Fenris lifted an eyebrow and looked down around himself. "I seem awfully flushed for a dead man."

"That's because you are alive," came Armand's sharp and flat tone.

_Obviously, _Fenris thought grumpily. But then it hit him that Armand's rare-if-ever humorous remarks seemed indeed, rare, because he was much more clever and subtle with his approach. While appearing to say a mere serious, dull platitude, what Armand actually intended was to say "Do not be so hasty. He said the _beauty_ of dead people and you are much alive. Obviously, you think too highly of yourself."

Thus his laughter came belated, but at least it made an appearance. "Indeed perhaps I was a bit hasty."

Armand smirked at last and Zevran resumed his louder speeches. "Ah, how did the saying go? From the cradle to the grave? Well I find graves to be insanely useless in my doing of things."

"I'm trying to think of how you will manage to throw the impending perverted punch-line with that sentence," Fenris said grumpily as he rested his leg on the empty next to him.

"That is because there is no impending perverted punch-line," Zevran said with a smile. Then his smile turned into a standalone grin. "Although…"

Armand rolled his eyes. "Way to put ideas in his head, Fenris."

He returned a smirk. "I see we're on a first name basis now. Or should I say real name basis."

"Yes, and see how quickly it died out when you managed to annoy me?" Armand said grumpily and sighed. He resumed his sharp familiar Antivan scratch with his saying, "Back to little bitch it is."

"This is most curious," Fenris said in a flat tone.

"What is?" Armand asked.

Fenris nodded towards the childishly snorting Zevran. "You seem to have nerves of steel with this one, yet with me-"

"_This one_! As if I'm some common lowly whathisface!" Zevran protested loudly and gestured. "No surprise why Hawke is so snarkity-uppity with you."

"Snarkity… uppity?" Fenris asked in disbelief with a tone that said he thought him an idiot.

"You are a man of few words," Zevran said with a smile and then nodded, "But they are quite enough to make someone wish to kill you within three seconds of meeting you."

"I suspect when she has so much in common with someone, she can't help but like me a little," Fenris said nonchalantly. He knew it to be true.

"Yes you are quite similar, are you not? You must have felt like quite the fool cursed by irony, no?" Zevran said and smiled again brightly.

"You cannot even begin to imagine," Fenris said while shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

"A snarky and peppery fugitive ex-slave from Tevinter meets a beautiful salty Ferelden apostate _right_ halfway through the world in the enigmatic city of Kirkwall. This seems like quite the perfect idea for a dark and sexy romance novel," Zevran said joyfully. "Oh, yes, Dorian must surely try and cook up a draft in the near future! I would love to read something like that."

"I suspect someone has already outrun you in that endeavor," Fenris said grumpily, pertaining to Varric. "Feel free to pester the dwarf about it and leave _me_ alone."

"Haha, oh, well now," Zevran said with a smirk and bent over the table. "I'm living _my _love story." Then he winked at him. "Yours still appears to be tangled up in the imaginary." Straight below the belt he had went, and not just in battle or in bed.

"Just the _one_?" Fenris asked stingingly, raising an eyebrow. "I am truly impressed by your loyalty."

Zevran frowned and the corner of his lips went a bit crooked. Of course he gave an appearance of someone who would hump a chair if there was nothing remotely similar to a living being in sight, but that was just what it was. An appearance. He was more faithful to the Warden than the Chantry and the Templars were on torturing the entirety of the magical race.

Finally he muttered, "Tsk. She must have nerves of steel indeed to have suffered you all this time without giving you a proper and thorough beating."

Fenris lifted his eyebrows. "_She _has to possess the nerves of steel?" He rolled his eyes. "Have you even listened to one word she said in-between strategically cheating on your wife with other little organs than the one which would indeed make it a little like betrayal?"

Oh, you are playing with fire, the Antivan's eyes said.

"You beg for it, my friend. The beating I mean," Zevran said almost with discomfort through his smile. "And how dare you throw such mean accusations on me!"

Fenris shrugged calmly. "You beg for it," he said with an edge. He shortly smirked, "The beating I mean."

"I beg _to differ_," Zevran said and cupped his chin. "I usually make do with at least half a day before someone wishes and tries to kill me." Then it appeared his eyes sparkled as he looked around. "Speaking of which –"

"Oh, I do not wish to kill you," Fenris said nonchalantly and dismissed him with a wave. "Although anything I would say I wish to do to you, you would just turn it to sound like a twisted perversion."

"How true," Armand said with a sudden smirk, as if he was remembering something. No doubt sometime in the past Armand and Zevran did not get along. They were the screaming proof of utterly different existing attitudes and personalities. It was absolutely inconceivable that it could have been any other way than Armand first wanting to gag and kill Zevran within three seconds of him opening his dirty mouth.

"Nope," Zevran said sweetly. "You could say you wish to buy me coffee."

Armand suddenly snorted. "That is Antivan code for shacking up."

"Well, he did not need to know that," Zevran fired back with inconvenience as he turned his head to Armand.

Being in the presence of two men very familiar with _men, _Fenris felt a bit cornered. Indeed, it seemed he had to be a little grateful though. He was quick with his jealousy. First he felt a rush to rapidly hate Dorian and his flirtatious familiarity with Hawke and almost got to the point of beating him up on the road. Then Zevran butting in to steal the glory with his charming advances within three seconds of meeting Hawke and thus within four to really bring his nerves out. Armand was the only one who did not turn him into a ticking time bomb and that was because he managed to find out he was taken with a man. Yes, he had to be grateful for that. Feeling the urge or ending up beating a second gay guy would have looked bad.

"I am quite bewildered as to how you ended up being married," Fenris said calmly, after the sleepy waiter finally brought their morning Antivan coffee.

Curiously, Armand took a sip of the fourth additional coffee he ordered, and then left it alone there.

"Has your eyesight not been working this whole time?" Zevran asked eagerly. "I am a delight!"

"A delight to be brutally offed and out of this world," Fenris completed calmly as he drank his coffee.

"That's exactly what she said to me!" Zevran almost shouted while smiling. Then he stared in blank. " 'Zevran, do not doubt that when we meet the Archdemon, I'm using you and your smug little mouth as an elven shield. If it's as unyielding at being smug as it is at saving my ass, then you shouldn't worry. Darling, don't look at me like that. You should be grateful with me. I am actually trying to be nice and controlled with my urge to simply throw you at it'. Quite the love declaration_._"

Fenris broke into laughter. It startled both the men.

"Is she generally that mean or was she saying that all in good reason?" Fenris asked as he was fairly amused.

"All in good reason," Zevran laughed.

"I respect that," Fenris said and gestured a cheers with his cup.

"Mi cara," Zevran said while sighing. "Not a second passes that I feel I will die if I don't see her again soon."

"You or just one part of you?" Fenris asked in amusement. If one particular part of him died, it wouldn't seem like such a tragedy. No, even if that part was cut off, Zevran would probably still want to have sex.

"All of me!" Zevran shouted happily. "I love her with all of me." Then Zevran painted a very intrusive and triumphant risen eyebrow. "Can you say the same about yourself?"

Consequently, Fenris's throat stiffened and his breathing air ways suddenly blocked. His eyes were empty and he quickly forgot where he was and whatever else that was happening. The chilly fog around them was clearer than the howling confusion in his head.

That word did not belong to his vocabulary. That word did not belong to his anything. And even without making use of that word, he knew little short of less than nothing about what he was doing or what he was feeling for _his_ particular redhead. Who was not even his to call as such.

Suddenly his air of triumph for what happened in the last day had been viciously crushed by one short decisive sentence from an equally short decisive elf.

Curse him.

"Leave him alone," Armand said suddenly. Fenris finally breathed again. "He's utterly clueless."

"Well, _obviously_," Zevran replied confidently while sipping his coffee.

"Oh, wonderful," Fenris said grumpily. He took a sip from his cup, then said, "Why don't you illuminate me."

"Gladly! You see –" Zevran started eagerly.

Fenris dismissed him with his palm. "That was sarcasm."

"I resolve to ignore it," Zevran said confidently, shrugging. "So as I was saying– "

"I do not need advice," Fenris fired back in annoyance.

There came an air of silence from the two other elves, both raising their eyebrows with half-lidded eyes and intending their being quiet to make the strongest possible impression that what Fenris had said was the biggest most impossible little lie since Andraste had told Maferath it was the Maker's.

"Fine…" his voice came very low and quiet as he looked down and started appearing very immersed into admiring the circles in his coffee as he put it down. "Maybe I need a little advice."

_Both_ of them snorted. "A little," they both said.

"Either state your ground-breaking ideas or cease with the inane prodding," Fenris demanded with a very obvious edge in his tone as he squeezed the cup with both of his hands.

"We are a couple of wiseasses are we not?" Zevran laughed while looking at Armand. "But all in good reason, of course."

"Of course," Armand said nonchalantly, almost drawing up a smirk.

"Here is the deal – it does not matter who has the penis –"

Fenris rolled his eyes. "I could swear you would start with –"

"Either shut up and listen or we will cease with the _inane prodding_," Zevran fired back and leaned over to the other elf. "Aren't we, Armand?"

"Very much so," Armand said sharply, resting an arm over the back of his chair.

Fenris rolled his eyes again. He waved a hand grumpily. "Proceed."

"Yielding are we? That is quite a good tactic even it if does not appear so at first glance," Zevran said with a nod and a confident grin.

"Riddles..." Fenris muttered, lifting his eyebrows and looking down. "…Shocking."

"Tsk." Zevran leaned back in his chair and gestured a dismissal. "You are on your own."

"Oh, come on!" came Fenris's sudden angry voice. He was little short of banging his fist on the table. He was abstaining.

"Begging," he laughed. "That you do not want to do," Zevran grinned abhorrently confident. "Unless she finds begging sexy, in which case knock yourself out."

"If she does then I clearly must have mental problems," Fenris muttered sharply.

"Of course you do, regardless of that," Zevran replied. "All people sitting at this table are utterly and irrevocably crazy. Which makes it even better."

"Meaning?" Fenris asked.

"None are better equipped to venture into the unknown and enigmatic lands of love as we crazy people do," Zevran said innocently. "It is a law of Nature. All unbeknownst that She is crazy too."

More riddles. Shocking.

He abstained from commenting.

"But of course all these thoughts are moot," Zevran said surprisingly. "What matters is what to do once we're there. Have you been…" he raised a naughty eyebrow, "…there?"

Fenris frowned in confusion. He didn't know how to answer that.

"He's tested the waters and the waters were shallow," Armand answered calmly for him.

"Oh, I am perfectly sure that he can_ thrust_ deeper," Zevran said with a devilish grin.

"I am perfectly sure I do not understand," Fenris said with a sigh.

"Dear man," Zevran started warmly. He put an elbow on the table and raised his palm to gesture while looking up to gather wit from all-knowing Heaven, all-stranger to him, for if Heaven knew who it was talking to, it would have started weeping with massive showers of rain upon them. "A woman, or a man, it does not quite matter really – but let's call it woman for the sake of your situation – one who is clever enough to dismiss you even with the slightest of scratchy gestures, must be approached with the same amount of sentimental wit."

"And by that he means you need to beat her at her own game with all the gracious respect a gentleman holds for a lady," Armand joined in with a nod.

"And by that of course, he means you have to woo her," Zevran said with a smile. "With an o, not with an e, well - one could argue- "

Fenris's gaze turned from one potentially insane elf to the other with such rapidity he quickly became dizzy and all the more lost.

"_Woo _her?" he asked with the highest that his eyebrow could reach and the most he could sharply articulate the word.

"So being all knight in shining armor until she finally puts out," Armand said rather surprisingly. "That is how it is commonly known to go. If you do that with her," he gestured to the inn with half-lidded eyes, "You can pack your bags and move to little phlegmatic pretentious Orlais with six broken ribs, a black eye and missing one testicle."

"And we all hate it when _that_ happens," Zevran said with closed eyes and approving with his tranquil nods.

"Well, we don't want that, do we," Fenris said with half-lidded eyes and a crooked grimace.

"So what you can do is be a knight in… how should we put it," Zevran said and looked at Armand.

Armand smirked a bit and finished his sentence as if they had lived together for a decade, "Darker armour."

How dramatic. He abstained from commenting.

"And by that we mean this: rather than trying to pointlessly impress her and be all kittens and rainbows," Zevran started while rolling his eyes at the last bit, "simply make do with showing her what nobody hardly ever does –understanding. Accepting. Giving her the helping hand even if she doesn't call for it. Even if she utterly and stubbornly refuses it."

"And of course, cut it with the jealousy," Armand said sharply.

"She confessed that she enjoyed it," Fenris protested.

Zevran shook his head calmly. "No, no, no. It is fine to show her you are threatened. It is fine to show her what a big bad Fenris you can be. _Harrowing Hell_, even I was impressed and a little bit frightened, I must confess," he said with an innocent smile, "But if you are threatened by any man or woman who even remotely looks at her and you act as if she is yours and abuse of that possessive pronoun and stretch it to marvelous, unreasonable extents…"

"You are doomed," Armand finished sharply, arm still resting nonchalantly at the back of the chair.

Fenris didn't seem to be impressed, but Zevran pressed, "Do not doubt that she has or will have other admirers. Of course, she is rather strange, a bit sharp on the edges and a threat to most men and their pretentious masculinity, but there is _always _going to be at least one other man or woman that will not be so threatened."

He couldn't conceive of such a one, but alas. He abstained from commenting.

"I've learned it the hard way," Zevran said with a sigh. "Armand did too, no doubt. Didn't you?"

Armand rolled his eyes very shortly. His tone came very grumpy in its reminiscing, "Fun times."

"Very fun for the one admired, not so much for the admir_er_," Zevran said and narrowed his eyes while clenching his fists a bit on the table. "No, not for us who were secretly abstaining from going at the other's throat, but quickly made do with politely excusing ourselves and crawling into a dark corner to _bark_," Zevran said with a sharp tone.

"I am just filled with joy all with you making all of _us _seem like dogs," Fenris said grumpily.

"If I make us seem like whales or hippity-hippos, would it make you feel any less offended?" Zevran asked while rolling his eyes. "Besides, if we are dogs, then that makes the object of our affection _bitches. _And while we say that with affection it never sounds quite that offensive."

"Yes, it does sound a bit endearing, doesn't it?" Armand surprisingly agreed.

Hawke's mabari, Mojo, was surely smarter and more content than any of the men sitting at the table like such civilized people. Well, the most civilized they could get. Fenris resting a leg on the empty chair beside him, Armand resting his arm at the back of his chair and Zevran conquering the table with his reeking elbows of confidence and widely parted legs under the table. He would not have the stomach to look under it if he dropped something by accident.

"You were saying something about jealousy before going tangled up in animalic terms," Fenris brought it back quickly, since he was growing positively impatient.

"To match our tigerish little appetite and our wolfish little hearts!" Zevran mused with a big smile.

Armand smirked arrogantly. "And our horse-like giant c-"

"Please tell me there's some coffee left for me," Dorian's voice came to save the impending perversion coming from Armand's evermore truthfully shocking dirty mouth.

The words that came out of Armand's usually cold and sharp tongue, now made Fenris's eyes fatally dry from growing wide and his jaw to land somewhere in the dwarven thaigs with full force. Armand's voice was deep and full with warmth in his sharp accent. "I saved you a cup, Amore."

"Thank goodness," Dorian said with a laugh. "You are goodness in a cup."

"I am also a god," Armand said rather arrogantly in his musing. His flirtatious eyebrow and half-lidded eyes were most disturbing.

"I do tend to call on you in bed," Dorian mused with a smirk. He drank his coffee joyfully and resumed listening to the others.

"Like I was saying, there is always room for some other smug bastard to rival in your courtship," Zevran explained calmly. "And you will do well to rival him with perfect tranquility."

"And pretend he doesn't exist," Armand added with a nod. "Once you grant him the right to existence, to hell with all the peace and quiet."

"If she is taken with you, you should not even worry," Zevran said with a shrug. "And trust the words of an Antivan, she _is _quite taken with you."

Fenris snorted at his dramatic comment. "Trust the words of an Antivan? That sounds like quite the contradiction."

"Well, now," Zevran said a bit offended. "Perhaps you would do well to trust the words of _two _Antivans then."

"Perhaps," Fenris said flatly. He took another sip of nonchalance.

"And even with no rival, you should always and always be ready to take her down as well," Zevran said. "Well, besides taking her down into the ever-more-wished horizontal positions. Yes that is the hardest part, is it not?"

"Very hard," Armand said sharply. You could guess he meant it as a clever hidden dirty comment to shortly explain exasperation.

It had been quite easy to take her down into a horizontal position, in fact. But alas, technicalities. He would do well to abstain from commenting. His curiosity was piqued.

"And what would you have me do?" Fenris demanded.

"Press," Armand took the initiative. "Always press. Don't give up. It's stupid."

"Yes, never yield," Zevran said. "Yielding is for _bastards._" For some reason, all with being aware of the history of the group that defeated the Blight, Fenris suspected Zevran was subtly pertaining to a particular bastard now on the Ferelden throne.

"Well that is a big load o'crap with your coffee of stubbornness this sodding morning of self-denial," Dorian surprisingly intervened in irritation. He looked at Armand and Zevran with a very disappointed protest in his eyes. They were both startled. A very tiny elf with now a very decisive outraged voice.

Zevran looked at Armand as if he would know what Dorian meant, but the Antivan shrugged with a trembling lower lip.

"You don't _press, _at least not like a big barking bowl of bestiality," Dorian said firmly.

"Big barking bowl of bestiality!" Zevran shouted. "I wonder how quickly I can say it five times in a row? Let's see. Bi-brking-bo-"

"If you want to make someone stay, then you need to kinda let them go," Dorian said confidently.

Armand frowned a bit. He didn't understand. Zevran only looked as if he had understood.

Dorian sighed and gestured, "You boys are clueless."

"Well now, we do have a penis after all," Zevran protested sharply with a raised eyebrow. "I wonder where yours went."

"It's landed much quicker where I wanted it to land than yours did," Dorian stung back firmly.

Now this was most amusing. Zevran was finally being dethroned. And Armand was ripe and flushed with redness in his once indomitable cheeks.

"Hm, 'tis true," Zevran yielded with an edge in his tone. "Do go on then, precioso."

Dorian resumed his explanation, "Well, if she's all – wait. We're talking about Hawke, aren't we?"

Fenris swallowed heavily. Curse him, he forgot they were friends.

"Well with Hawke I can tell you this," Dorian said and conquered the table with his elbows. He took a sip of nonchalance, and then resumed his grin, "You do not have a chance if you're a pretentious little douche."

"Does he seem like he's little or pretentious?" Zevran asked sarcastically.

Dorian laughed. "No, he's fine. What Hawke dismisses are jerks. He's not a jerk. He's more of a … half-stingy harmlessly-venomous little snake."

"Emphasis on the little snake?" Zevran asked innocently.

"It is not the size that matters, it is where you get to put it, - Adonis, 9:33 Dragon," Fenris mockingly quoted the elf. It didn't matter. Of course, if it did, he would not have to be worried. But he was abstaining from feeling smug about it since Zevran was stealing all that ambition and leaving him careless in that not so little endeavor.

"Ah, you do listen!" Zevran shouted eagerly. "How shocking it is."

"And you do spew perversions whenever a poor little word has the unfortunate fate of being cheaply twisted," Fenris stung back nonchalantly.

"It had been a long time since I made a euphemism," Zevran defended himself innocently. "Truly, you must give me some credit. I tried to abstain for as long as I possibly could."

"He's not bullshitting," Armand said seriously. Then glanced sharply at him, "This time."

"You wound me," Zevran mused with a smile. "And I never did mind a few burns."

"So how does he get to put _it_ there?" Armand asked Dorian shortly thereafter, as if he was actually curious as to why he was protesting and discarding the two Antivans' theories.

"Well first of all, be yourself," Dorian said to Fenris with a sigh. "I don't care what shit you do. First rule of thumb is never stop being yourself. Otherwise you'll probably manage to come to be together, but your stupid fake relationship will just as soon come to an end. You'll become yourself later and then you'll both be surprised of how much a fantasy you built up in your heads that you actually got along."

"That seems only fair," Fenris approved calmly. "What is the second rule?"

"Well since I'm familiar with the particular garden you're trying to reach," Dorian said with a naughty eyebrow, probably to get on Fenris's nerves again and play a little, "I can say very confidently that this applies to me as much as it does to you."

Fenris lifted an eyebrow. "And that is?"

"If she's all defenses and dismissive while still showing that she wants you," Dorian said and gave Armand a very obvious and sharp look, "you just gotta be a little more distant and colder. Just a little. Nonchalant. Joyful. All full of _whatever._" He quickly lifted his cup of coffee as if to make a toast. "Then they be tremblin'."

"You did that on purpose?" Armand asked in sincere amazement and discomfort, his nonchalant arm at the back of his chair falling into sudden not so nonchalant defeat.

"You noticed?" Dorian mused with a snort, drinking the coffee.

"Hardly," Armand said honestly. "Not until much later."

"Well then," Dorian grinned, holding the cup to his face as if it was a symbol of victory, "I mean, don't get me wrong, like I said," he said back to Fenris. "First rule of thumb is to be yourself. I'm just pertaining to how much of _yourself _you should give. Like not throw yourself at them more likely. That's quite about it."

"You actually did that on me, Amore?" Armand protested calmly.

"Well it worked, didn't it?" Dorian said nonchalantly while drinking his coffee. "You ran and ran and I didn't give a fuck. I showed you I gave a fuck through my actions dime a dozen and it was enough and you knew it to be so." Then he gestured all-knowingly with a giant grin. "So you started to show you actually gave that fuck you worked so hard in hiding from me."

"You little fiend," Armand said sharply and caught Dorian by the shoulder, bringing him closer to him. He kissed his head as if he were chaste, but with all the fire of warmth he could possibly show.

Fenris had his brows lifted up to Heaven again. He searched in Zevran some kind of protest.

"Don't look at me," Zevran muttered grumpily, shoulders sunk. "I did the same thing. Or she did. I don't quite remember."

"I can guess," Fenris said calmly, drawing up a smirk.

Zevran shrugged. "Tsk." He cupped his chin. "Although I do remember endless nights of throwing myself at her, all while shortly thereafter – after being so viciously refused over and over again – I slowly learned my lesson and backed off a little."

"And then she came to you?" Fenris asked, curious.

"Well, it was inevitable," Zevran said with a cocky grin. "Or so I tried to point out to her afterwards to save it."

"Did it work?" Fenris asked with a laugh.

"No, she said she seduced _me,_" Zevran chuckled. "Yes, what a saucy little minx she was. She didn't know it to be true, however."

"But, even so," Dorian intervened. "This is Hawke we're talking about. Just like Zev's girl and my big guy," he said with a grin and glanced at Armand, "they're not people to be _really _played with. Trust in your damn little heart. They'll come to you if you let them. Don't stretch it. It's a recipe for destruction."

"Ah, but how can we, when we have such appetite for destruction," Zevran said macabrely in his Antivan accent.

"Though, to be fair, we don't do well with self-destruction," Armand pointed out calmly. He sighed heavily and resumed, "And that brings me to another difficult lesson which only I can truly give to him."

Fenris's ear twitched and he was ready to listen, although growing tired of the endless love lessons.

Armand leaned over the table and gave him a sharp, determined look. "It makes little difference if you kill your master. It doesn't make one shitting copper of a difference." His tone remained very sharp, "Being truly free is in the soul. If you deliberately destroy your soul as if to comfort yourself that you are hopeless, you are doomed. You are doomed and it will be ugly."

Fenris didn't answer. He was swallowing heavily and his hands became shaky, so he quickly hid them in his lap so nobody would see.

"I know how much it cost me. Amore knows too," he continued, giving Dorian a sad glance masked by firmness. His lover nodded only slightly with his eyelids, but only warmth came with it. "And Hawke will know it soon enough."

Scowling even more, Fenris remained silent.

"I am merely saying the truth, I do not mean to scare you out of it," Armand said. "It would be a dumb fucking thing to pull away from something so true and worth our poor little tortured and clueless hearts." Then, to make his statement all the more clearer, he added, "And it would be a fucking insult to our lovers simply because they are ready to take our burden." Then he sighed and shook his head, "Dumb-, dumb fucking thing."

"Dumb it is," Dorian said and went to caress Armand's red hair. "But you were worth the trouble."

"As were you," Armand said with a very warm smile. He took Dorian's hand and kissed it, then squeezed it with a fervor that Fenris wondered if it matched his own or he was simply fooling himself. His mind resolved to block everything from overthinking or shock him, and simply keep watching the two elves in their beautiful romance.

"Ah, love," Zevran said joyfully. "It is not for pure cowards. For half-cowards yes. It turns them into the bravest of men."

"Yeah," Armand said. "You really shouldn't say you love someone unless you mean it." Then he looked at Fenris a bit narrow-eyed. "But if you mean it, you should say it a lot." Then he closed his eyes and shrugged. "People forget."

"Yes, love is when you smile when you're tired," Dorian added tranquilly and glanced at Armand as if he meant him. His returning look confirmed it.

Zevran closed it. "Love is also when you kiss all the time, then when you get tired of a thorough good _kissing_, you still want to be together and talk."

"Yeah, we're something like that," Dorian laughed.

"Indeed," Zevran approved, then looked at Fenris and grimaced with sarcasm. "They look gross when they kiss."

"We have each other to kiss," Armand said confidently. "You only have this." He gestured a very polite up-yours finger.

The sun had barely risen and the day had already been full of wonders.

Antiva was _creepy. _Varric was correct.

But Fenris did have one conclusion, in-between all those raging love definitions his brain was exploding from with utter protest.

Love was, as he suspected, what Armand had done a while ago. He took a single sip of the coffee meant for Dorian before he came to drink it, to see if the taste was just alright.

* * *

**Some minutes later**

Varric and Isabela joined shortly thereafter and brought upon holy salvation even with the adjective not even remotely seeming characteristic to any of them.

When Hawke finally showed up, his jaws, his hands, his everything, landed down to the fiery core of the earth.

Yes, Fenris was about to fall off from his chair. She was wearing a simple blue-greenish sundress in which every pretty little curve of her thrashed and shouted without being revealed almost at all.

As if by an automatism, Fenris removed his leg from the empty chair next to him. Hawke quickly took a seat, as it turned out. He unconsciously conquered it to save it for her.

"Wow, get a load of you. You look so pretty. I hardly recognize you," Isabela said with a wicked smile.

"Sadly for you, I still recognize you," Hawke stung back with a smile.

"Hiss," Isabela mused with a wink.

"Well now," Hawke said cockily. "Still alive… and well?"

"Still and both," Armand said with a chivalrous nod. "And I have you to thank for." His tone was sharp and warm. Truly grateful. No other words were necessary between them.

"No need," Hawke said with a dismissing palm of modesty. "I would have done it with my eyes closed."

"Hawke," Dorian said sharply.

She batted her eyelashes in mockery. "Yes, Dory?"

"I am speaking for both of us, and probably all of the fine people at this table when I say – stop being so fucking modest," he almost shouted. "Accept the thank you. You are a damn good woman."

"I am damn good-looking, yes," Hawke corrected defensively with joy. "Thank you."

"How about some coffee of truth with that smug grin of self-denial," Dorian pressed again with a wink.

"Coffee sounds good," Hawke agreed with a nod.

"You know the difference between right and wrong," Zevran intervened.

"Do I?" Hawke asked innocently.

"You know the difference between right _and _wrong," he repeated pressingly. "How do you not rule the world, I cannot possibly conceive. You are a genius, a sage, a giant among men. You have solved the problem which philosophers have been debating since antiquity—the mystery about which no two nations or tribes have ever agreed, and no two men or women have ever agreed, and no intelligent person has ever agreed totally with himself from one day to the next!" Zevran continued in a lively tone. "_You know the difference between right and wrong." _He raised his hands up in the air. _"_I am overawed. I swoon. I figuratively kiss your feet."

She could feel Justice growing green with jealousy all the way from Darktown.

"Why thank you, though no need for such swooning gestures," Hawke said in amusement. "So what's up?"

"Me, Armand and Fenris are now best friends," Zevran said cockily. "Yes, we are quite the funny colorful trio, no?"

"Right. I can tell from the bat wings and the leeches that you three are just all happy-smiles and rainbows," Hawke said with lifted shoulders and a joyful smirk.

"I am the happy one," Zevran said with confident arching brows. "Those two," he gestured, "Well, they're just two of them because they couldn't possibly take me down separately."

"Yes, why don't we test that theory?" Armand asked sharply. He glanced at Fenris. "Care to gag and tie him later?"

"Ah, affection always comes with _strings_," Zevran fired back nonchalantly with a smile.

"Why are you in a dress?" Fenris asked and startled everyone.

The utter silence was broken off by Hawke smiling crookedly and saying, "Well, Lord Seeker of Truth, if you must know, I ran out of clothes."

"Really now?" Fenris asked with a risen eyebrow.

"Yep," Hawke said confidently. "Someone flushed them all."

"Guilty," Isabela said with a shrug.

"Mmmm. I'm sensing a dirty story," Zevran outran Varric in pointing it.

"Not really. Well, if it counts that she saw me naked, then yeah," Hawke said with nonchalance.

Fenris's eyebrow remained there up and paralyzed. Blushing. Much blushing. She didn't seem to notice.

"I knocked her baggage in the bathtub," Isabela said innocently.

"On purpose," Varric added with a nod.

"Well you know how they say – you catch more flies with honey, but drown them straight and you save up on the perishables," Isabela said with playful grin.

"Next time I'm not gonna try saving those _perishables,_" Hawke said stingingly with a wink.

"Muah," Isabela blew her a kiss.

Hawke pretended to dodge it entirely.

"_Hiss_," Isabela fired nonchalantly.

"Oh, you two are a delight," Zevran noticed with ease.

"We're much more of a delight naked," Isabela said with a grin, while making use of knowing how they both looked like.

"Hm. Well, I must disappoint you," Zevran said with a sigh. "Whatever you lovely temptresses would look like, my eyes automatically hallucinate mi cara and that is all I see from then on to eternity."

"I heard you the first nine times," Isabela said with an edge. "I got your drift."

"Well I'm insistent like that," Zevran said sarcastically, mirroring her own insistence.

"You think too highly of yourself," Isabela said in defense. "For a short person."

"Ah, now why do you sting?" Zevran said in protest and dismissed her with a childish wave. "Tsk. _Assassinate _that attitude."

"Well that was a crappy pun," Varric laughed and made a pun himself for mockery, "Which is kind of a pleonastic _redundancy_."

"I'm all _pun_-sexual like that," Zevran said with a shrug.

"Like pansexual, but with a pun?" Hawke asked in amusement. "Pantastic."

"Funny," Varric said cockily. "How about we go back to the higher forms of wit."

"They say that sarcasm is actually the lowest form of wit," Armand said calmly.

Hawke snorted. "Well they've obviously never met me."

"Obviously," Fenris articulated with an unexpected smirk.

"We're all kings and queens of utter sarcasm back in Kirkwall," Hawke said joyfully. "Yep," she gestured, "We check our parachutes and launch ourselves into the Waking Sea of Sarcasm."

"Then when we're feeling _really_ ambitious," Fenris started with a smirk, "we cut our own strings and fall straight to drown into it like idiots."

"You said _we_ right?" Hawke asked. "Like, you know that includes you too, I hope?"

"I'm fairly aware," Fenris nodded calmly, pertaining that she had already made her point way back in the bathrooms that it was her duty to tell people they were idiots and he hadn't still forgotten.

"You did not just say that," Hawke almost shouted with a happy smile, which could only mean there was something else lurking about. "I have a feeling we're on the verge of hugging and coming up with cute nicknames for each other."

"Haven't we already done that, Tuffpants?" Fenris asked mockingly.

"Priscilla, please, it's high time we're on a first name basis," Hawke mused back.

"You know what's coming for you if you call me Fenkis," he said with an edge.

"What now?" Isabela asked also with a suspicious edge.

They ignored her quickly. "I wasn't going to call you Fenkis," Hawke laughed. "I was going to fall back on Mister Fister. Well, since it's a first name basis I should only call you Mister. Or is that Fister?"

"Well since you've already _fallen back_ on that so frequently," Isabela said vaguely, "I'd say it's growing a bit tiring and redundant."

"Nah, it never gets old," Hawke chuckled and dismissed her with a grimace. "It's a classic."

"I _bet _it is," Isabela said with narrowed eyes and glanced at Varric, who also dismissed her, because he still didn't believe her.

"Mister Fister!" Zevran shouted. "Ohhh, because of his-" He snorted childishly. "Oh that is a classic."

"He's bright and must be given credit to appoint it a classic upon only first hearing it," Hawke said in amusement.

"I am often thought of as being remarkably bright, yes," Zevran said with a smile, "And yet my brains, more often than not, are busily devising new and interesting ways of bringing my enemies to sudden," he gestured articulately, "gagging, writhing, agonizing death."

"Right… the guild master. How's that going for you?" Hawke asked curiously.

"Oh, Pas-_caca_?" Zevran asked with an edge. "He's dead."

"Dead?!" almost everyone shouted.

"Yes, when I happened to be looking for our Hawke here in the other half of Antiva City you two hadn't looked in," Zevran started while pointing at Varric and Fenris, "I magically came across the bastard in a dark alley. No, truly," he said calmly and shrugged, "He was startled."

"And?" Hawke asked with lifted eyebrows.

"And so I said Fool!" cried Zevran and he gestured dramatically to match his tone,"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is 'Never get involved in a land war in the North', but only slightly less well known is this," he leaned forward across the table and eyed his audience with the most confident look, "Never go in against an Antivan when death is on the line."

"Ah, you are your mother's trueborn son of Arainai," Armand said sarcastically.

"Am I?" Zevran asked innocently sardonic. "Do tell my father. My mother died birthing me, and he's never been sure that it was she who bore me."

"His grave is too far away," Armand muttered sharply.

"That has never been an inconvenience with you before, my friend," Zevran shrugged.

"I'm growing old, Zev," Armand said with the genuine tone of an older man than he really was.

"We remain children at heart," Zevran smiled joyfully. "Do try and preserve that."

"You're lucky though. I do not even know who my mother was," Armand said a bit bitterly.

"Some woman, no doubt. Most of them are," Zevran said childishly, shrugging up with his elbows on the table.

"PAS-_CACA_, what happened to him?" Hawke demanded impatiently.

The elf quickly snapped back to reality and resumed his lively story, "Yes! Pasquale! So well, I killed him," he smiled childishly.

"Care to elaborate?" Varric asked with a bit of an edge. He needed to know the story.

"Ah, well, you want to describe how I killed him?" Zevran asked.

Everyone nodded.

"How truly macabre you all are," Zevran said innocently. "Anyway, as I was saying – what was I saying?"

"How you killed Pasqaule," Hawke gestured impatiently.

"Do dead people like music?" Zevran shouted vaguely, but with much ripeness. "I hope they listen to mine if they do, in their coffins, in the cold underworld, between the mind and the body in an insomniac wall of sleep."

When nobody said or gestured anything anymore – since they learned their lesson – Zevran continued his story with a bit of short-lived grump in his cheeks.

"Groin' is a funny word," Zevran said suavely with an evil smile. "'I do not know the Tevinter word for it, but I'm sure you do', I said to him. He began to talk more quickly then, because I could tell he was starting to die.

'So I said to him – "Oh, maybe you didn't see it in the papers, but they've made this fabulous theological discovery, do you know what they've found? People don't go to Heaven, at the Maker's side or to the Void, to the _Inferno_, no. No, no,"' Zevran gestured very calmly.

'You see, they all go to one spot first, sort of a way station, and that is where things happen, because, you probably will not believe this, but some people on this earth have been known to do bad things to other people, innocent people, and at this way station, the innocent people wait, and then when their savager comes, they get to exact a little portion of revenge. The Maker says revenge is good for the soul. Do you know who's waiting for you, Master Pascalus?'

He then gestured dramatically, but in a calm, firm tone, "'All the elves. They're all there, and you know what else? They've all got spiky whips and thumbscrews, like you used on me - remember how you said how wonderful it was, anyone could learn that, how to use them?'"

He formed a fist and resumed, "'Well, they have and they're waiting, and I don't know about you, but I think it's gonna be terrific.'"

"Pasquale was almost dead by now, but I just had time to get that in, more the lucky I am, yes?"

"'Have a swell eternity,' I said."

"It must have been fifty seconds more before he died." Then Zevran closed it with a short smirk as he stared in blank. "Long time."

"That… was awesome," came Hawke's quite voice as her jaw dropped and her eyebrows were highly lifted.

"I told you I am ridiculously awesome," Zevran shrugged calmly with a little smile.

How positively tranquil he was with all of that. Most curious, Fenris thought. Indeed, it seemed as though there lurked a little triumphant air in Zevran, but mostly it seemed as though he had been truly at peace with it for a long time beforehand.

"So what will you do now?" Fenris asked.

"Well, first things first, I get out of this wretched damned country," Zevran said with a dismissive wave. "And I see mi cara. Yes, first and last thing I will ever do alive."

"How romantic and full of crap," Hawke said joyfully.

"Trust the word of an Antivan, my dear," Zevran said with a grin.

"I can't," Hawke said with a wink. "I know too many Antivans."

"You have come to known the two most true Antivans alive," Zevran said with stretched arms. "Cherish that. Let yourself fall into it."

"I'm afraid she'll get lost in there forever," Fenris surprisingly intervened in a tactful sharp tone.

"This is an Antivan in his true form, my friend," Zevran said with a nod.

Fenris shook his head, "I don't know about your true form, but the weight of your ego sure is pushing the crust of the earth toward the breaking point."

"Said the elf with the impossible smug look on his face," Hawke said with a wink.

"What you meant was improbable," Fenris corrected her wiseassely. "It's an improbable look of arrogance."

"And very likely," Hawke added with an edge.

"To be improbable," Fenris finished calmly.

"Ah you must adore this man," Zevran said joyfully. "Aren't you lucky to work and fight with such a charming fellow, come to this restaurant thereafter and drink strong coffee like fine and true warriors, dabble in the wondrous depths of the absolute and whatever else you do when you're not bitching at each other as if you are an old married couple!"

"He's even more charming at home," Hawke said with a smile. "Isn't he, Varric? He rides a unicycle through the house – "

"- even up and down the stairs," Varric added peacefully.

"He juggles eggs as he sometimes makes breakfast for us when we're sick–" Hawke added.

"- which he serves to us in bed of course," Varric added.

"- and pulls fragrant bouquets out of his ass," Hawke finished and smiled towards Fenris. She lifted her shoulders and smiled ever more widely. "He's just a joy."

* * *

**Upon leaving Antiva City, Ponte della Misericordia (Bridge of Mercy)**

"Well, there it is," came Hawke's sighing voice as she turned back to gaze at the marvelous city. "Goodbye, Antiva."

"Let we never come back," Fenris said a bit bitterly.

"Oh, come on, it wasn't all death and despair," Hawke pleaded innocently. "It was more like near death and half-despair."

How true.

"Regardless, I shall never wish to return," Fenris said with an edge as they gazed at the howling rivers and swinging gondolas in the distance. Birds were somewhere flying blind in the persistent fog above them.

"Well, I've got enough cigarillos to last me about ten years. Five, if I do smoke," Hawke mused.

"Five years it is then," Fenris said calmly. "And two or three until that pretty little face will irrevocably fall off."

"If it's because my jaw will land somewhere, well," she gestured, "here, because you might just crack me a damn compliment for once, instead of an insult, then yes."

"It was a compliment," Fenris said in a tone of rather innocent fakeness. "Have you not heard when I said pretty face?"

"I was too busy listening for the pretentious scratch lurking in it," Hawke said with a raised eyebrow.

"Well aren't you paranoid?" Fenris asked grumpily and enclosed his arms. "Maybe if you cease with expecting that pretentious scratch from me, I might just unconsciously stop."

"Maybe if you cease beforehand, I might just stop now and stand corrected," Hawke said calmly, smiling.

"Then I do stand corrected," Fenris said sarcastically, locking his gaze much too passionately calmly onto hers.

Varric's voice came ever sweeter, "Well now, since you stand in the same bridge with one another why don't you two just jump off."


	3. Armand's Last Lesson

**So now that we've settled, let's learn some lessons. Since drama, romance and humor made an appearance, I thought I'd honor them now with the last ingredient for scandal - wiseassery :D**

* * *

Zevran had to go back to Denerim, all with apparently attending Bann Teagan's wedding with the Warden. He was getting married to a peasant girl from Redcliffe who they once helped to escape the village and hail to the capital during the Blight. They were, in a way, responsible for their random encounter in Denerim, so they were guests of double-honour at the happy celebration. The mystery with the helping Zevran was in a way, all clear now – Armand was supposed to flee Kirkwall with Dorian and they would reside in Amaranthine under the Warden's protection. The luckiest place an elf could settle in was surely there and as Zevran said it, he welcomed them there for a long time without asking for anything in return but Armand kept refusing until it was clear to him he had a good reason to ensure a happy and safe life. That reason was of course the same with tasting that fourth cup of coffee.

In light of this information, they were quick to give their proper goodbyes to one another, since their easiest way to get to Ferelden in time was by ship. Isabela was most annoyed. Her eyes sparkled with the idea to join them, but then her throat stiffened and she lowered her gaze with an air of sadness as she said she had affairs to handle elsewhere.

Out by the harbor where the ships waited, they took a moment to say those goodbyes. They turned their backs on the ship and glanced at the buildings with domed roofs and bell towers tumbled down the last of Antiva City's hill to the harbor where the torches turned beneath the ornamented arches of an arcade.

As they were walking towards the harbor, Hawke still remained to seem zealous and overjoyed.

"You are welcome to come, my dear, anytime," Zevran said to her with joy. "Well, except spring, summer and fall. Those are the busy travel work days." He sighed and smiled. "Ferelden does have its perks, all with getting stuck inside for some three-four months with snow up to your neck."

"This is the first time I talk about the weather and it's not all chitter-chatter," Hawke chuckled. "By the way, how is it for you to live in Winter Wonderland?"

"Well… for me? Quite alright," Zevran started, then gestured south, "For little Zevran, not so much. He is very _big _on honesty you see, and he doesn't like it when he appears to be _lying_ – and of course he hates shrinking from the cold too. That's also a little problematic."

"How little?" Hawke mused as they walked.

"A little too much for you to take," Zevran winked devilishly.

Suddenly Hawke broke into contained little snorts, all more because she pictured Fenris for some cruelly dumb reason intervening with a cocky, "Oh, I'm sure she can take it" and then scratching the middle of his pants and adding with a sensual little smirk and a nonchalant shrug, "But she's more of a giver". For some other cruelly dumb reason, she was sure it would grow in his character to say it someday. She smiled a little inside, even though she didn't know why that would make her smile.

But snapping back to reality, Hawke pretended to be wounded by Zevran's witty comment and put a hand over her chest, "Oh, if only I were given a chance. Sadly, I have a very big and honest soul, which I hear is kind of a turn-off for you guys."

Zevran smirked and sized the hand on her chest. "Oh, yes_,_ you have a very _big _and honestsoul, andno," he winked charmingly, "I assure you it is not a turn-off for us guys." Then he turned his head to the only straight man in the group –besides the spoken for Varric in love with a crossbow, which deemed fairly problematic in the roundness of things – that he could really ask to confirm, "Do you not agree, Fenris?"

He couldn't _hate_ his name more now as he heard it.

There came an awkward head jerking on Fenris's part as his eyes flinched and his brows joined in a quick ashamed look, but not as awkward as his cheeks that grew evermore redder than Hawke's own radiant hair. He then coughed shortly and drawled, "She is a very honest soul."

"I was not asking about her honesty or her soul, big bad Fenris, Second King to all evasion," Zevran pressed with delight. He was the first king of evasion, probably – which meant, like any self-respecting king, that he was bound to feel terribly absolutist in showing his rivals where they could stick it. Strategic to no end, and which ever graceful talent, he could use a form of attack that they did not specialize in. A form of attack called **swooping**. Someone very wise in history said something about that, didn't they… Well, no name or person came to mind, but that bastard was very right.

Alas, Fenris stood corrected; he couldn't possibly hate his name more as he heard it the second time. Everyone was looking at him. Varric was giving a very evil risen eyebrow, potentially ever more ready to listen and remember for when he would put it on pen and paper and stamp to doom him for eternity in writing. Isabela was snorting – horrifically – and was perhaps indeed two of those snorts away from blasting her brains out into overjoyed kitty laughter (of which he wouldn't mind – the brain blasting anyway). Dorian was smiling – not grinning – perhaps in sympathy. Armand was nonchalant and appeared to not even listen to them as they walked, which he was grateful for. Hawke was the worst: she had her teeth out like a predator in the biggest most patient and joyful smile of them all. No, the worst would have been if added to that curiously feminine teeth-wide smile she would join her hands like a sweet little girl, all pushing her not so little chest in- and, out. Out of their curvy, very desirable proportions that were pleading and begging him to come and make sure they were just alright, like they were a cup –two cups – of strong delicious coffee, white and consequently stamped and going down with a cold because of the paleness of her nationality.

And so he managed to ruin the meaning and image of Armand's gesture in less than an hour... All while no even caring for it and being too busy wondering what it would be like if they were with Hawke and that pretty little dress all far away in Ferelden in times of cold winter.

Maker, he was going to hell.

As he snapped out and as his throat became ever more stiffened, in light of all this scenery that he resolved to overthink out of proportions, his voice came terribly hoarse and low in tone even as he tried to save it, "You do remind me of my friend Donnic's great nana. Although you still have both your legs."

Hawke broke into laughter and nodded in approval at his quick save. Zevran was disappointed. Everyone else was rolling their eyes. Armand laughed. It was a triumphant day for everyone.

"Well now, if that great nana is as feisty and hot as another great nana I one knew," Zevran saved it too, "You've got yourself a compliment, Hawke."

That great nana was terribly weeping somewhere far far away.

"I take what I can get," Hawke said joyfully. "It's hard to extrude compliments from him."

"And most times you don't even find the compliment in the giant battalion of clawing and thrashing from his muttering," Varric intervened while smirking, speaking from his own experience.

"Santa Madre, for shame!" Zevran exclaimed and raised his arms. "There is a serious shortage of fine bosoms in this world and it would be a terrible pity to damage yours!" He dismissed Fenris with his feisty driven hand. "For shame!"

"Oh dear, I think I stepped in something," Fenris said nonchalantly. He really did step in something.

"Ahah, at any rate," Zevran chuckled and waved with his palm at Hawke. "Until you find the time to visit, I shall first and foremost go straight to mi Cara and tell her all about you."

"Please don't," Hawke said to Zevran. "I mean I'm flattered that you deem me worthy to be told about, but… seeing as I hallucinated her once and ran for the hills to chase a ghost, I don't want her to think I'm a swooning fanatic all cheering and jumping like a psychotic bumble-bee at what a sweet delight she obviously is in my head." Sweet delight to snort and laugh to death if she ever found out.

"I will try," Zevran said with a smile. "But I cannot promise anything. After all, I can never really forget bosoms of such great importance. And no, do not go all accusations and disapproving looks on me!" He raised his wiseass index finger to match his confident grin. "What you did not get to hear yet is that I am quite the gentleman – in that I also manage to _always_ remember and associate the name and the face with the legendary bosom." He winked. "This, I swear."

Indeed, someone in history was also crying from a faraway land from Zevran's comment.

"More so because you never did actually associate 'legendary' with 'bosom' more than twice in your life," Armand quickly ruined it.

"Well they did need to know that!" Zevran exclaimed and shot Armand a grumpy look.

"Well…" Hawke started and shrugged, "Goodie."

"Do not be grumpy, my dear," Zevran protested calmly. "It does not suit your lively face and those big radiant eyes."

"Oh, but my how my eyes look don't make much of a difference, do they?" Hawke muttered.

"I plead and beg for you to smile my dear," Zevran said charmingly. "In all seriousness, do smile."

Hawke gave Armand a look as if to question if he was serious. Armand confirmed with nodding his eyelids that he was indeed serious.

She rolled her eyes, tried to picture Zevran gagged and locked with a chastity belt and finally smiled. "Better now?"

"I am overjoyed and I figuratively swoon," Zevran praised charmingly.

"Great. I'm a joy of life I am," Hawke muttered in amusement.

"Ah, the modest sighs of one's despair," Zevran said with a sigh, "Truly you cannot be more unreasonable than life itself is."

"Yeah, life is unfair," Hawke shouted grumpily and while having unperturbed eyes, she quickly raised her arms above her head and snapped her fingers. "Olé!"

Zevran then broke into laughter and fell on the ground while holding his stomach.

"What got over him?" Varric asked with a risen eyebrow.

"I made him swoon," Hawke joked with a wink.

* * *

**A few minutes later**

Beneath the last arch, for a moment, Zevran and Armand took Fenris by the side.

"Yes?" Fenris drawled as the two men cornered him with their peculiarly serious gazes.

"We have something for you," Armand stated like a general.

The rustling sound of the leaves and the birds flying away up above was the answer he gave them.

Not a man of unnecessary words himself, Armand undid something at the back of his neck and let loose a necklace out from beneath his coat. Fenris had already forgotten about that trinket, having only once spotted it around his neck in camp when he kept his vest wide open because of the heat from the fire pit. Even then, he didn't have much time to notice all with being too busy hating him in his mind that he was more muscular than he was.

He held the simple silver chain in his hand, leaving a small darker locket in the form of a narrow leaf to dangle in the air. He quickly raised a questioning eyebrow and gazed in confusion at a very serious-looking Armand.

"It's nothing, but consider it a thank you offering," Armand muttered with a slow nod. "And do not worry, we gave Hawke and Varric something too."

"… Alright," Fenris drawled and took the necklace in his hand.

"When you open it, you'll see that I put a thread of my luscious hair in it for safekeeping," Zevran chattered innocently. "You know, if you ever wish to remind yourself that you must really do something with that stubborn jerking of your bangs. That or simply to remember how awesome I am."

Fenris quickly shook his head and gave Zevran a look full of protest and disbelief as the elf was quickly moving his eyebrows up and down with a saucy grin.

"He's kidding," Armand quickly said with a ghost of smile.

"I hope," Fenris uttered calmly. He slowly lowered his gaze to the object in his hand and then looked back at him. "Does it do anything?

"If you're thinking runes of nature or fire or some other ancient abracadabra, then no," Zevran said rather calmly.

Armand gave the locket a simple look and raised his tired eyes back to Fenris. "I kept it with me for as long as I can remember. Whatever it does, it seems to have worked."

"Then why give it up?" Fenris demanded quietly.

The corner of Armand's lips extended only briefly and his eyelids fell halfway. "I don't need it anymore."

"Oh?" Fenris asked. He looked at again to study it and muttered unemotionally, "Is it some personal symbol of freedom?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Armand said firmly in his sharp tone. "Just keep it."

Fenris nodded knightly in acceptance. Then his right eye moved quickly to Zevran. "You said _we_."

"Did we?" Zevran asked playfully. "I don't quite remember."

"I'm sure," Fenris uttered with a smile. He had already gotten used to the elf's way of handling things.

"It is the royal we," Zevran tattled with a wink.

"Zev," Armand growled and gave him a look.

"What? You know I am not good with goodbyes," Zevran protested in a serious tone.

"Quit your yackety-yak and ask him your question," Armand commanded unemotionally.

Zevran raised an eyebrow as if he didn't know what he was talking about. Quickly something sparkled in his eye and he resumed, "Ah, yes. Dal vuoto, how I can forget!" He approached Fenris and coughed a bit awkwardly.

"You wish to give me kissing lessons too?" Fenris snarled in a bit of irriation.

"Not unless- _OUCH,_" he quickly screamed and turned to Armand who probably pinched him from the back with all the relentlessness of his gauntlet. "Idiota, I was going to say not unless you wish mi Cara to harrow Hell over both of us all away from Ferelden. She will know it before I get to pull my pants up."

"Why would you need to pull your … pants up?" Fenris asked in confusion.

"I don't know how you do kissing, my friend, but when I do it they always come down," Zevran laughed joyfully. "Oh, but do not judge me so quickly," Zevran said and raised a flirtatious cocky eyebrow. "It is not I who does the-_OUCH._" He turned to Armand and gave him a murderous look.

Armand remained calm and shrugged with an air of innocence, "Time is running out."

"Life is pain and all, but I would appreciate it if at least my calendars were gentle," Zevran protested while rubbing his back. He turned back to Fenris and resumed calmly, "At any rate, I need to ask you a question that I feel would be dangerous to ask Hawke, all with being sure she will storm the city gates of Amaranthine soon enough now that my 'yackety-yak' mouth also gave her a welcome_ whenever_."

"Alright…" Fenris nodded calmly, giving him permission to continue.

Zevran nodded back politely and resumed with a waving gesture, "I have forgotten about it entirely all with the escaping near death and Hawke getting lost in the city and with all the helpful speeches about love I have honored you with as a professional-"

"All the -speeches-, yes," Fenris corrected calmly.

Zevran chuckled and resolved to give him right, then continued, "-and so I forgot about your dwarven friend mentioning an…" his eyes became a bit darker and his brow arched up sharply, "… Anders."

From the very quick response of Fenris's eyes rolling and reaching the back of his head, Zevran nodded in empathy, "Ah, so 'tis true, it is _that _Anders."

"I can only assume from the scorn in your saying 'that Anders', that you know him rather well?" Fenris asked.

"I've always been held as a rather sympathetic and fortunate person," Zevran said calmly. "Which is why I equally cherish my luck that he is gone from my life as much as I pity that he fell into yours. All six feet of _bull _that he is."

Fenris broke into laughter for a moment. It startled Zevran. Then his amused face quickly died and he raised a questioning eyebrow, "You are not just being dramatically funny, are you?"

"Unfortunately, this time I am not," Zevran sighed. He waved a dismissive hand. "He is an evil little fiend, and while I quite frankly do not waste time despising people, this one really begged for it."

Fenris chuckled again and said, "I am beginning to think his leaving the Wardens was involuntary."

"It can be argued. It is a long story. But even so, he was lucky. I was close to viciously beat the_ crap_ out of him at the time. Fortunate for him, that I am such a gentleman," Zevran said with a hand over his heart.

"I am familiar with that honorable abstinence," Fenris agreed calmly.

"Well, now," Zevran said in curiosity, "I cannot imagine how or why he decided to be a pain in _your _ass."

"However shockingly, it wasn't voluntary," Fenris said calmly, shaking his head. He crossed his arms and asked, "But why would he get on _your _nerves? You don't seem the kind to pay heed to such things, as you said."

Zevran rolled his eyes, "Tsk. Why do you think?" He crossed his arms and scowled. "I'll give you a good guess."

"I am terrible at guessing," Fenris said calmly.

Armand finally intervened with rolling his own eyes, "What is the _only _thing in the world that can make Zevran storm the gates of the Dark City itself for with all the viciousness and cruelty of a crazed serial killer?"

"I'm sensing that's a rhetorical question," Fenris drawled with a risen eyebrow.

"And much redundant," Zevran pressed with an annoyed scowl. Fenris didn't say anything, so Zevran sighed and waved his hand in irritation, "Cara."

Fenris was about to say something, but Zevran stopped him with unyielding annoyance, "And do not play fool and say you do not know what cara means." To that, Fenris raised an eyebrow and Zevran closed his eyes while shrugging very innocently, "It is an insult to me."

He seemed serious. "Did he do something to her?" Fenris asked.

"I didn't let him have the chance," Zevran growled in annoyance. "Ah, he abused of his rank and her friendship enough as it is. But even so, it matters little now for me. Pay no heed to my irritation."

"You had a question… about an hour ago," Fenris said in amusement.

"How true," Armand said with a little smile.

"How true indeed," Zevran confessed and looked down. "I want to ask you how he is doing."

"Do you frequently take interest in the health of the ones you despise?" Fenris asked a bit mockingly.

"Hm. I did say my mind goes more often than not into the land of planning writhing and agonizing deaths for my enemies," Zevran mused, coming back only briefly to a joyful attitude. Slowly he became serious again and asked, "My question pertains to what he is doing there, what his intentions are. And more importantly, _what _is he now?"

Then the meaning finally arrived in Fenris's sanctum of reason. He lowered his gaze and sighed, "Ah, you mean the merging with the spirit part." He crossed his arms defensively. "I will have to disappoint you. I know little about what he is, although I strongly wager that what he calls himself ," he gestured mocking quotation marks, "_spirit healer, _is just a fancied up term for abomination."

"What does Hawke think?" Zevran pleaded in a bit of a heightened tone. "I mean, she is a –"

Fenris raised his palm to stop him and articulated quietly, "Keep your voice down when you associate her name with the next thing you were going to say. She's not a common whatshername back home anymore and it's dangerous even in these parts to speak about it."

"Forgive me. You are most reasonable," Zevran agreed chivalrously. "And see," he chuckled and gestured, "that right there is what a truthful helping hand is. I don't think our lessons were necessary."

"No, I suspect it was purely for your entertainment, all with laughing at the clueless escaped slave in love," Fenris snarled grumpily while crossing his arms and leaning with his back on the wall. Good thing that he did lean on something, because he quickly stiffened as he realized the last words he had muttered. _Kaffa _was the shortest and most articulate curse his faltering mind could come up with.

Zevran chuckled and raised a triumphant eyebrow, "You said it, not us."

Quickly killing the next thought in his mind, Fenris resolved to go back to their original point. He waved his hand in his crossed-arms posture as he explained, "We had a discussion over it once. I remember her saying that there are no records of mages coalescing with spirits, and therefore it is presumed that there have hardly been any incidents like this in history –because spirits are opposed to leaving the Fade and Justice was, in turn, cast out of it by some possessed-mage-soul-abomination-," he pressed his lips, "whatever."

"I know this part too, but one could only wonder," Zevran said a bit in sorrow. His gaze lowered as if he remembered something and tried to hold the memory. "I knew a very good woman once. _Know, _but we do not get to see her very often now. Her name is Wynne."

"I know that name," Fenris said quickly, but took a moment to remember where he had heard it. "She was with you when you defeated the Blight."

"Yes, she was, on the tower itself when the Archdemon fell. Her courage and dedication were… simply put, unfaltering and eternal," Zevran said in warm voice. "And her bosom, even more."

"Does her bosom have anything to do with this story?" Fenris demanded while rolling his eyes.

"No, no, not really," Zevran said with a smile. "I will stick to what's important. Even if her bosom is also of grand importance."

"Do go on," Fenris said. "With the story."

"Well you see, when the Circle fell and we came to save it, she died trying to defend the apprentices. Or so she said, anyway," Zevran explained. Fenris frowned a bit and continued listening, "And once she told us that a Spirit of Faith was what saved her. That it simply entered her body, enveloped her in a warming light and she started feeling the cold hard ground again in less than a second. And so, even if she never really stated it as such, it was testament that her time was not done and her duty was to save the Circle and help _us_ with the Blight."

"And?" Fenris asked, a bit interested now.

"And so she did. With a lot of faith that we would bring the darkspawn to their knees," Zevran said joyfully, remembering, but then he dismissively gestured, "Not some idiotic blind faith of course. She gave us strength and faith from her years. She was very wise, and very beautiful for her age."

"Sticking to the story," Armand intervened with a little smile.

"Thank you ever so much for keeping me focused, Armand," Zevran said calmly. "And so, well, it never occurred to me to think that something was wrong. That what happened was unnatural or evil. And it was not!" Zevran exclaimed seriously. "It is different though, because that is much more miraculous – a spirit that deliberately came for her rescue. I think that's what made her uncorrupted by it. She did not say anything about the spirit talking in her head or some other sorcery."

"That is not the case with _this _one," Fenris protested with discomfort, uncrossing his arms. "He says it talks in his head. Or they are only one now, or," he dismissed with his palm in anoyance, "whatever."

"Sad, is it not?" Zevran said with half-lidded sorrowful eyes. "Wynne said she was an abomination living on 'borrowed time' to help us." He pressed his eyes and snapped out of his trance. "What does _he_ do?"

"He treats people in an underground clinic," Fenris said, and with a bit discomfort, he added, "For free."

"Well, now," Zevran said with a rapid scowl. "That is quite uncharacteristic of him. No, that is completely ridiculous."

"Why?" Fenris asked in confusion.

"Because he was nothing more than a big selfish scoundrel as I remember him. And lucky, like me, to escape the ones that were after him," Zevran said despicably. He shrugged with his arms crossed, "I know the type."

"Well you seem to be quite the honest good-doer these days," Fenris gestured towards him in a half-mocking tone, quickly thereafter feeling like hitting himself in the head for appearing to defend Anders.

"Ah, well, I am good at heart," Zevran protested and shrugged. "Surely you can appreciate the difference."

"Surely I can appreciate some light over what your question really is," Fenris pressed.

"I don't quite know, to be honest," Zevran confessed. "I mean, surely what I know is that I never wish to have anything to do with him again. You know, never _see _him again," he pressed, pertaining to his wife. "She had enough trouble at his doing."

"What did he do?" Fenris demanded.

"A Templar infiltrated the Wardens in their ranks and sought to arrest him for being an abomination. He said that the Wardens agreed upon it." Then he sighed. "Sadly, that piece of news did not arrive to the ears of her _authority._"

"I'm beginning to sense this is going nowhere pleasant," Fenris muttered.

"She was all in favor to defend him, of course," Zevran said with a bit of scorn in the last part. "But instead of listening to her and end the thing peacefully, he and that all-knowing soooo righteous _spirit _decided it was indeed, time to take," he gestured mocking quotation marks, "_justice_, in their hands." Zevran then shook his head and sighed in exasperation. "He killed the Templar _and _the Wardens. It was very ugly afterwards. He fled the Keep and left her with all the pointing fingers."

"…What a _shithead_," Fenris articulated in surprise. The term he used just as much surprised the men.

Zevran quickly chuckled and waved his palm, "I never do with calling people this – for obvious reasons – but he does deserve all the fullness of scorn in being called _whoreson._"

"I am inclined to agree," Fenris muttered with a crooked smile. "Fortunately for my nerves, I am already used to him. He began to work with us about the same time when I joined Hawke and Varric."

"They are friends?" Zevran demanded with a bit of disgust. "Oh, no, please do not tell me he manipulates her too."

"Manipulates?" Fenris asked in surprise, frowning urgently. "I would not call whining and rambling in tones of a strangled soprano," he gestured mockingly, "about mages deserving to be free to a yawning Hawke, well, successful manipulation, to say the least."

Zevran started laughing with joy at his mockery and joined his palms, "I knew I adored you! Now I adore you even more!"

"Adore me some more with telling me if I should be worried," Fenris pressed in alarm.

"Well… you said something about the cheering for the liberation of mages, did you not?" Zevran asked while cupping his chin. "A scumbag apostate and manipulative son of a bitch possessed by a crazy spirit of justice and a hungry force for vengeance. Now you can appreciate the redundancy in the expression 'You can put two and two together'."

"Well… Santa Madre…" Fenris muttered with scorn, and came up from leaning against the wall.

"_Bastardo_," Zevran articulated with narrowed eyes.

"You think he has a hidden agenda?" Fenris asked urgently.

"No. Yes. Well," Zevran tattled, crossing his arms. "Keep an eye on him."

"You don't have to tell me twice," Fenris said firmly. He looked back to the harbor at Hawke who was laughing in joy with the others. Then he turned his head back to Zevran. "You have to tell _her._"

"Well, she is a –" Zevran stopped and nodded with pressed lips to deem the next term as self-explanatory. "So you should start praying he will not convince her to do something stupid." He sighed, "After all, I was very serious when I told her that she could rule the world if she so wished. She could outmaneuver entire armies if she so wished. She is the same as my darling wife in this respect."

"Well, how very fortunate for everyone that they lack the desire to abuse of their strength," Fenris said honestly.

"People and love are afraid of change, more than they are of their destruction. But both can also be very courageous in welcoming change when their needs take an unexpected toll. So in that respect, do not forget which you wish to savor. If you want it to last, or you want to destroy it. Change is not always a good thing," Zevran said very seriously. "Sometimes it is unfortunately necessary."

"A necessary evil?" Fenris asked perceptively. He snorted heavily, "Ptfeh. You are stretching this philosophy. If we bring your point back to our little abominable 'friend', this sounds as if he could become an activist once and a legend thrice. Forgive me if I don't foresee him having a legendary future."

"By healing gutter tramps in an underground clinic? No," Zevran nodded with a grin. "By abusing of the wealth, influence and compassion of a praiseworthy friend… You may want to tie and gag him now even if this idea has not yet tickled his scurvy little mind."

"She is not _that _wealthy and influent," Fenris said in a bit of relief. "Her compassion, well," he jerked his eyebrows and lowered his gaze, "We should feel grateful that she is utterly divorced from magic, even with her compassion."

"It is good to have a moderate, balanced conception of things," Zevran said with a smile. "It is also good to be tied down to a higher duty, as not to feel too driven and free to do as that compassionate heart pleases." He lowered his gaze and smiled. "If not for being Commander of the Grey, one could only imagine what sort of wonders this impossible little woman could do." He shook his head and stared in blank, "Storming a tower full of abominations and blood mages, and oh, such butt-ugly demons," he laughed, "She would have done it with her eyes closed and her hands tied. And without being arguably forced into it because of requiring help from all over the nation. BUT, it was her duty. It was good."

"Well… I promise I will remain alarmed until she joins the Guard or something to justify her actions," Fenris replied a bit insipidly.

"No, my friend, do not be so alarmed," Zevran said with a tranquil little smile. "Like I said, we do good when it needs to be done. We do not search for it, to feel like some dignified saints. We are simply found by evil and in that moment only do we make it our duty to fight it. I do not think Hawke would mean to _start _anything, be it good or evil."

"How very true," Fenris agreed calmly.

"Well then," Zevran inhaled heavily, then straightened up like a knight. He took an honoring bow and nodded with his eyelids, "It was a pleasure to meet you and get your help. And be saved by you. Twice, if I recall. I always seem to forget these things," he said innocently and then his voice became macabre, "Not as much as I recall exactly how many people I kill."

As Fenris raised an unimpressed eyebrow at his dramatic line, Zevran smirked innocently, "I compete for points, you see."

Fenris chuckled and nodded for a goodbye, then Zevran turned, but gave him another quick wink, "Do try not to fall into a trap," he said; only after added, "Or learn to wear boots. I hear the fashion now is blue and red velvet with peacock trinkets."

"Z- Zevran," Fenris drawled.

"Zev," he said. "Please. I am Zev to my friends," he said as he turned around.

"R-right," Fenris said and coughed shortly. He nodded in chivalry, "Benevis fedari, Zev. May the ground rise to meet your feet."

"Si vive una volta sola, ma se lo fai bene, una volta è sufficiente," Zevran uttered in a proud voice. "You only live once, but if you do it _right_, once is enough." He then went down the path for the harbor to join the others. Armand remained still.

Fenris looked at him and was a bit faltered with questioning. Armand looked as much tranquil as he did zealous, with a curious air of compassion or warmth refracting out through the cracks of his indomitable expression. He stood with his arms crossed and shared their look for a moment.

"You wish to ask me something too?" Fenris asked calmly, not in the mood anymore to crack some joke up about performing surveys or inane prodding. He owed a lot to this man and though he wouldn't admit it, Fenris was a bit anguished and remorseful with the thought that they would probably never meet again.

"I told you I had Lesson no.2 for the little bitch to go forth with stepping on the higher ranks of happy bitch," Armand said with a taunting grin which only made his sharp tone more dominant now.

"You must have given my evil twin all the other happy-bitch lessons," Fenris mused with a little smirk.

"No, those were for stepping to the ranks of only bitch," Armand said sharply and jerked his head. "And they were in my charming friend's company, so we did not get anywhere much anyway."

"Do tell, Cupid," Fenris said with the fullness of an amused expression.

"Who?" Armand asked with a risen eyebrow.

"Your masters back in Vol Dorma have obviously not had a pointless soft spot for ancient heathen creeds and an even more annoying habit of rambling about it day and night. Sometimes, I truly wondered if I preferred the dungeon and shackles to that inane prattle," Fenris muttered bitterly. It was confusing, and most horrifying, that he felt at ease to joke with Armand about their plight. Perhaps because he understood, it didn't feel like it was such a crime to remember only for a second and treat it as if it were nothing.

Armand crossed his arms and grinned. "Do tell, Wiseassus Maximus."

"Cupid? Oh, some powerful desire demon, no doubt," Fenris quickly cut it. "One which happens to look completely undesirable."

Armand chuckled and sighed. "Alright. Lesson no.2, yes?"

"I am all pointy ears," Fenris growled with a smirk. Why did he feel so amused with himself all of a sudden? Was it because Armand was inarguably much stronger and wiser than him, thus he felt like a child? That this man was perfectly free now, and his tale was over. There was no more malice or discord to torture his life, and it appeared as though there was none of it in his soul either. So perhaps, on the contrary, his tale was only just beginning. The "happy-bitch" life; he had it all. Fenris resolved to dispatch all of this from his mind.

"When I gave you the first lesson, in camp all those days ago, I told you if it doesn't work, I will take issue to give you the second, yes?" Armand said.

"It hasn't worked, and you did," Fenris pressed redundantly.

Armand laughed. "Of course it hasn't worked. That's why I gave the bad lesson first."

"You did _what_?" Fenris almost shouted, anger painting all around his furrowed brows and the boiling vein on his forehead.

"You first had to see what you do not want to do," Armand said. He shrugged nonchalantly, "Without overdoing it of course. I am not an idiot and I am not evil."

"No, you're only a slightly bit evil," Fenris said, mirroring Armand's short and clever jokes which pertained that he was still an idiot.

"Oh, I'm so offended," Armand muttered with half-lidded eyes. "Notwithstanding, I first have to tell you something else."

Fenris crossed his arms. "Well, with my gross credulity at your words, you might just call me a dwarf and I'll nod in agreement and walk on my knees."

Armand laughed and startled him. "Now that would be an image – "

" – that is improbable to happen," Fenris pressed, so he wouldn't get any ideas. "Now that I no longer am overly open to conviction with you and your earthshattering suggestions."

"Oh, you will. Pay me heed," Armand pleaded confidently. "You will not be sorry."

Fenris snorted, "That's what Hawke told me before we entered the Bone Pit."

"You are alive," Armand rolled his eyes.

"Not the mine in Kirkwall. The luxury whorehouse here," Fenris articulated grumpily.

Armand snorted. "She took you to the Bone Pit?"

"She was hungry and it was late," Fenris said, all while trying not to smile.

"Alright," Armand chuckled hoarsely. "Well. Words seem to fail me now. It's most curious." He lowered his gaze and seemed to ponder or search for something in his mind. He pressed his eyes shortly thereafter and his face changed into very sharp and shrewd, with the fullness of dominance. "Breathe. Breathe a little and start enjoying your life. There will be time for horrors such as this that you witnessed with me. But you should not fear and worry in-between." Armand then gave him a very broad, illuminated and down-right startling smile. "Because your friends will be there for you. Your friends are there," he gestured towards the harbor, where Hawke was still laughing joyfully and clutching onto Varric's shoulder for balance as he was impersonating Senechal Bran and his pretentious little risen eyebrow. Fenris couldn't help but smile at the sight, before Armand snapped him out of that warm trance and caught his eyes, "They will be there to share your burden, as well as be there when time comes to battle your worst nightmare. They will always be there."

It then occurred to him that Armand was the only one who didn't seem alarmed when Zevran told the story of killing Pasquale. He was there with him, just as Zevran was in the catacombs, but he let his friend tell the story as if he were the only one there because he knew that Zevran liked telling stories and it would make it all the more dramatic and compelling when he told the dramatic speech about all the elves ready in the purgatory with spiked whips and thumbscrews waiting for Pasquale before he killed him. That was friendship, as he noticed, just as love was when he took that one sip of coffee to be sure it was alright.

"You just have to _be there_ too, for that," Armand said firmly. He narrowed his eyes and heightened his face with half-lidded eyes to catch the image of his fellow escaped slave's understanding. "Are you friend enough for them to stay, Fenris?"

Fenris glanced at the harbor slowly and caught Hawke's eye as she was looking at him from a distance. She quickly smiled and waved, then stuck her tongue out at him. Tickled to death, that's how happy she looked when she did it. Ever more radiant she seemed, and joyful and ripe; cascade of red tumultuous hair and big, cheerful hazel eyes, testament to her dual colorful nature – and it had nothing to do with the dress. Immersed into that vault of heaven she exuded, Fenris didn't even notice he was smiling back; and a wide smile it was.

"Vivere è la cosa più rara al mondo. La maggior parte della gente esiste, ecco tutto," Armand finally said in a botched Antivan accent and snapped him out.

"Meaning?" Fenris demanded as though he hadn't made up at least part of it.

"To live is the rarest thing in the world," he said firmly, then sized Fenris up sharply, "Most people exist, that is all."

He looked again in the distance and pondered on it for a while. He hadn't felt like he did more than simply existing for a long time; this was very true. Twice he did feel he lived, and one of those times was still continuing today. And this second time it felt like he would crumble to the pits of the Void if it didn't last. He resolved it in his mind that somehow – however surprisingly optimistic of him, but not at all uncharacteristic to his dedication – he would make it last.

"And once the game is over, the king and the pawn go in the same box," Armand said and snapped him out of his trance again. "And you may automatically think I mean that your master or the humans are no better than you as an elf or an escaped slave, but," he stopped to catch his gaze and lock it there, "It also means you are no better than them if you lose yourself and treat the world, or yourself, with scorn."

"An interesting way to put it," Fenris commented and pondered on it. He coughed shortly. "You may be right."

"I am always right," Armand said while smirking arrogantly. He closed his eyes. "And you can hear Amore by the harbor giving me the finger now."

Fenris broke into laughter. It didn't startle the other anymore.

Then he looked as if he was pondering on something. "Hmm. Cara… Amore…" Fenris gestured almost philosophically and then he smiled as he muttered, "The pet names we gave to each other revolve around clown and troll mages for her and magic-fisting cockatoos and blue-glowing snowglobes for me."

"And you know why that is?" Armand asked sharply, catching Fenris's gaze with insistent eyes.

"We're… funny people?" Fenris muttered with an honestly nonchalant shrug.

The next thing in turn startled Fenris now, Armand laughing very loudly. A lot, and echoing up towards Kirkwall, with the strength and deepness of a bass, Armand laughed with joy and almost satanically, then finally finished with as his eyelids fell halfway and his laughs ended in a very sharp, mocking and disgustful, "_Eeeghh._"

Fenris didn't say anything, all too impressed and confused, and a bit frightened. The next thing startled him even more. Armand inhaled like a crazed bull and his sharp eyes narrowed as he approached him.

"Lesson no. 2," he uttered articulately in his walk. A bit unsettled, Fenris leaned on the wall because Armand didn't stop at the polite distance. As his back touched the wall, Armand rested his hand against it near Fenris's head and his dominant gaze locked onto him, all alight with the rays of the Sun arching past his red hair and his green eyes. Then, with all the abruptness and imperative of tone, Armand uttered the shortest and clearest sentence in history that did not need any over-openness for conviction, "Tell her how you feel."

* * *

**Sunset, Ponte della Misericordia (Bridge of Mercy)**

"Well, since you stand in the same bridge with one another, why don't you two just jump off," Varric's voice said sweetly.

Hawke broke into laughter, but before she could add some funny joke to her witty raised gesturing hand, something interrupted it.

"Oh, what a fine idea," came Fenris's voice melodically. He grabbed Hawke's hand all of a sudden and dragged her to the balustrade, to everyone's surprise. "What do you say?" He jerked his head and grinned widely, "Shall we do the dwarf a favor?"

Hawke didn't protest, instead cupped her chin and smiled fiendishly all with Fenris still holding her hand, "Hm. I do owe him a favor after dragging him to the catacombs, 'tis true."

"Are you kidding? Who's gonna drive the carriage when the horses are much more likely to throw me by the rope and into the evergreen forests?" Varric quickly shouted. "Isabela, Captain of the Two-Three Raindrops of the Only Slightly Moist Road-Dirt?"

"How sad," Hawke said while still smiling. "Perhaps she could make do with sailing with the carriage across the sea that your tears are going to make over losing us, yes?"

"Tears of laughter, I assure you," Varric said confidently and crossed his arms. "This is the most scandalizing image I have ever seen of you two in."

"I've seen worse," Isabela muttered with a risen eyebrow. Varric gave her a look of dismissal with his grimace, so she concluded it would be best not to assault Hawke and Fenris with the truth now that they were standing on the edge of a bridge. They might just jump before they confessed anything.

"You have three seconds to admit you can't live without us," Hawke said confidently. She squeezed Fenris's gauntlet and leaned shortly over the balustrade. "Three…"

"Quit it, Pantaloons," Varric muttered sharply.

"Two…" Fenris exclaimed all-devilish grinning.

"That includes you too, Sir Broodsalot," Varric growled with his arms crossed.

"One and a half, one and a quarter," Hawke said rapidly and they both bent strongly on the balustrade smiling at each other through their teeth.

Varric uncrossed and raised his arms and lowered his head. "Pfeww I take it back, I take it back, jeez. I can't live without you two! There." Then he stretched his arms and muttered, "Throw in a _fuck you_, too while I'm at this love declaration in the fluffy capital of romance and rainbows. NOW LET'S GET THE FLUFF OUT OF HERE."

"I suppose a heartbreaking scene where we all hug on the Bridge of Friendship is too much to ask, isn't it?" Hawke chuckled as she came with Fenris back at them.

"It's the Bridge of Mercy," Fenris corrected and rubbed his chin."Which is still very dramatic in itself, since we have subdued ourselves to Varric's."

"Yeah, you're at my mercy, bitches," Varric growled charmingly. "So if anyone fucks with me again and forces rainbows and unicorns out of my sparkly dwarven fairy self, you can take it shooting with sprinkles out of my fluffy dwarven ass when you give it a nice kissing," he said and gestured to his butt mockingly.

"Oh, not the _sprinkles,_" Hawke gasped and put a hand over her heart. "We don't want that now, do we, Fenris?" she asked joyfully as he caught her gaze and smiled

"You can never take a dwarven fairy's words lightly when they're threatening with sprinkles," Fenris said calmly.

"Well then, I guess you can move your worthless asses to the carriage now and get the fuck out of here," Varric said with a charming wink.

"Did I hear right?" Hawke pretended to eavesdrop. "I don't think I heard it right, Fenris. Did you?"

"I am very certain he said 'the fluff out of here'," Fenris mused all-grinning.

The dwarf turned their back and walked as he uttered, "Aw, that's sweet – you two musing about two of the things that begin with the same letter," he turned his head and winked, "that both of you have _absolutely no idea_ about," he finished firing back joyfully.

They would have protested, but, it began to occur to them a few seconds too late that the "absolutely no idea" part was more articulated by Varric not because he knew for fact that they were canoodling behind his back (which he didn't) or that they were some kind of utterly unemotional or purely chaste people, but because –as it turned out, Fenris and Hawke, all grinning in their glory... had _absolutely no idea_ that they were still holding hands.

* * *

**It was shorter, but I wanted it to end with this theme of friendship. **


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